


So This is Love

by Kasket



Series: A Study in Love [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-04-21 16:40:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14289042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasket/pseuds/Kasket
Summary: It's too bad that he wasn't born as Fred Astaire because Adam Parrish's holiday break becomes a lot more stressful when he learns that he has to waltz for Mrs. Gansey's black-tie Christmas gala. However, dancing the waltz pales in comparison when Adam has something important to say to Gansey and doesn't quite know how to express himself.





	1. Absolutely Besotted

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Peeps! I am back and with a multi-chapter fic this time! So this is actually a sequel to my fic [A Study In Living in Your Own Skin: A Presentation By Adam Parrish and Richard Gansey the III.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13065579) It was a gift made for the trc-exchange. Anyways, I had so much fun making that fic that I made a sequel to it because Adansey shippers need a little more love. Reading the first fic isn't necessary to follow this one, but I do highly recommend reading A Study In Living in Your Own Skin: A Presentation By Adam Parrish and Richard Gansey the III for context. The fic is already written in its entirety (so no WIP for this fic) so be on the lookout for updates every week or so. Just a tiny warning that there are references to abuse in this fic to those who may be triggered by those subject matters.
> 
> Amazing news: So this project is a major collab with [ the talented Wizcrd.](http://wizcrd.tumblr.com/) Her art is amazing, and I am so excited by the materials that she has made for this fic so far!!! Please go follow her and her art blog and be prepared for some gorgeous Adansey fanart coming your way. 
> 
> Lastly, I want to give special thanks to [ the freakin' stunning dollopheadsandclotpoles](http://dollopheadsandclotpoles.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr for helping this fic rise from the ashes like a beautiful Phoenix! Thank you so much for being a great friend and beta reader!!!!! You're the best.

They were pulling an all-nighter in the library the evening before finals when Gansey had sprung the subject out of thin air. Adam used the word “all-nighter” loosely because thirty minutes before Henry had clunked out on the table with his face smashed into a chemistry textbook, a stream of drool dribbling out of his parted lips and onto the pages. Noah, Adam’s new roommate, took full advantage of what was supposed to be a ten-minute snooze, by drawing a handlebar mustache on Henry’s face in cocktail pink sharpie.

Noah was a welcome addition to their now expanding friend group. Tad, Adam’s ex-roommate, had rushed Sigma Phi Epsilon last spring, and at the end of the year, had sat Adam down to gently break the news that he had plans to move into the SigEp house in the fall, and unfortunately Adam would have to find another roommate for sophomore year. Adam was so distraught by the news that Henry, Gansey, and he had gone out for celebratory White Clam Pizza at Pepe’s. Adam didn’t put in much effort to search for a new roommate, figuring that anyone would be a pleasant step up from Tad. His room assignment came at the end of the summer, and Adam immediately recognized the name - _Noah Czerny_.

Noah Czerny happened to be the love of Henry Cheng’s life (which was how Adam recognized his name). He was the love of Henry’s life, but he just didn’t know it yet. Freshman year he accidentally wiped Henry out with his skateboard, and Henry had fallen deeply, madly, and utterly in love despite the fact Noah had no idea that he even existed until this year. Noah was a sophomore too, majoring in photography and had recently spent the entirety of his summer studying art in Amsterdam. He had some of the best stories to tell, and he always told them with flare and animation. Adam liked him a lot, and it wasn’t long before Noah had joined in on their group adventures.

When Noah had grown bored with perfecting Henry’s mustache, he sighed and stood from the table, slipping his phone into his pocket. “I’m grabbing fruit snacks from the vending machine. Does anyone else want anything?”

“I’ll pass,” Gansey said, his head buried in notes for his _Great Hoaxes in Archaeology_ course.

Noah turned to Adam.

“I could actually use a caffeine boost at the moment,” he said. Noah nodded.

“Coolio.” Noah shot a few finger guns in Adam’s direction. “If any of you change your mind, I’ll have my phone with me.”

Before Adam could pull a spare dollar from his wallet, Noah had walked off towards the staircase. Adam’s eyes flicked back to Gansey, who kept bouncing between his textbooks and his notes, his thumb brushing thoughtfully over his pink lips.

It had been over a year since Gansey and Adam met in Professor Malory’s history class, and a little under a year since they had started dating. Adam didn't take history with Gansey anymore, as he had fulfilled his history credits. This semester unlike the three before, Adam had no classes with Gansey at all. As the two progressed in their respective majors, there were fewer chances of their schedules overlapping. At least, he had two classes with Henry next semester. He wouldn't be completely alone.

Sensing a pair of eyes on him, Gansey glanced up. Adam, whose neck and ears turned pink, didn’t look away but calmly held his gaze. Gansey’s mouth broke into a smile, and Adam felt his foot press against his own under the table. Adam smiled and nudged back.

“There is something that I’m curious to know.”

Adam raised an eyebrow at this. “What are you curious to know?”

“Helen called today.”

Adam waited in quiet anticipation of what would follow such a statement.

“How did it go?”

“It went well, I suppose. We mostly talked about our parents and the Gala. My mother has been in an exceptionally pleasant mood since the elections played in her favor.”

“They are still fine with me staying for the holidays, right?”

Gansey and his family had invited him to spend the Christmas Holidays with them again. Normally, Adam would feel like he had overstayed his welcome, but Henry would be staying with the Ganseys too, which made Adam feel better about the situation. Due to her recent campaign victory, Mrs. Gansey was hosting an extravagant Christmas Gala and she had graciously extended an invitation to Henry and Adam. He had been looking forward to it.

“No one has changed their minds. I assure you that you’re still eagerly welcomed for the holidays.”

“So what did Helen and you discuss?”

“We were talking about the Gala, and Helen brought up something that I never considered asking you.”

“What is that?” Adam asked before he exhaled. He hadn't realized that he was holding his breath.

“Do you know how to dance? Specifically, do you know anything about ballroom dancing?”

“Ballroom dancing?” Adam repeated. Whatever question he had expected Gansey to ask him, this was left field of whatever he had imagined. When Adam thought of ballroom dancing, his mind went immediately to the legendary scene from that old animated Cinderella film where Cinderella and her prince are dancing together, looking at each other with starry eyes as a soft, saccharine melody swelled in the air. The closest he came to that was in elementary school when their PE teacher had taught them square dancing once when it was too rainy to play outside.

“Yes, they are usually known as social dances. The waltz, the foxtrot, the quickstep, the bolero…”

“I get it.” Adam snapped.“I guess I would say no. I don’t have any formal dance skills.”

Gansey’s lips curved into a slight frown.

“Why are you making that face?” Adam asked.

“My mother is re-living her debutante days with this Gala, and she is insisting on a waltz for this black-tie event. It’s imperative that you learn how to waltz before the Gala.”

Adam stared at Gansey blankly. Listening to him speak felt like being submerged underwater. The words were distorted and jumbled together.

“There is nothing to fear, really. We’ll just have to provide you with lessons.”

“I don't dance,” Adam choked out. “Finals week starts tomorrow. We’re making a big excursion to Henrietta days before the Gala. Please enlighten me, Gansey, as to when I would have the time to find someone to teach me how to waltz.”

“I’m certainly not the best, but I’m proficient enough to teach you the basics.”

“You know how to waltz?” He didn’t know why he was so surprised to find out that Gansey could dance.

“Of course, what proper gentleman doesn’t know how to waltz? I wasn’t raised in the barn.” Gansey said. Adam raised his brows before Gansey finally got the implication of his statement. He raised a hand to his mouth, and his face grew flushed. “That’s not what I mean. I think you’re a proper gentleman even if you don’t know how to waltz--No--That came out wrong. What I was trying to say--”

“Gansey,” Adam dropped his forehead into his hands. “Just stop talking. You’re making this worse.”

He couldn’t imagine himself waltzing across the floor with anyone, even Gansey for the matter. Adam Parrish was no Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire. He wasn’t suave or graceful or light on his feet at all. Adam didn’t dance.

Henry shifted in his seat before his head shot right up, wearing a panic-stricken expression on his face. His hair stood up, and not in the perfectly coiffed way that Henry intended for it to be. There were lines on his face from where the book pressed into his cheek. Henry fumbled for his phone and checked the time.

How long have I been asleep?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Probably thirty, forty minutes.” Gansey replied, and Henry’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

“You let me sleep for forty minutes?! I told you to wake me in ten.”

“We did, and you ignored us,” said Adam.

Henry groaned and buried his head in his hands. It was the sound of all of man’s misery trapped in one body. “I’m so going to fail this final tomorrow. Do you think if I offer the TA a decent blowjob, he would convince the Professor to pass me?”

“Why the TA though? Wouldn’t you just proposition the man actually in charge of your academic fate?” Adam asked.

“Because I don’t want to suck on some wrinkly old man’s bits.”

Henry gave him a look as if Adam had just said something idiotic, which was ironic considering how ridiculous he looked with that drawn-on mustache. Adam sucked on his lips to stifle a grin and turned his gaze to Gansey who was openly staring at the crude handlebar mustache with slight distaste. Henry hardly noticed, staring down at his chemistry book as if he was reading an instruction manual in Swedish.

“I think you’re better off getting some rest and waking up early to cram. Besides, you say this every semester, and you pass with high marks--” Gansey stopped mid-sentence, scrunched up his face before shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t take you seriously when you have that thing on your face.”

“What thing?” Henry asked.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” Noah chirped, ruffling Henry’s already messy hair. He tossed a packet of skittles into Henry’s lap before he stopped and burst into boisterous laughter that made the other students shoot murderous glares over at their table.

“What’s so funny?” Henry patted his face frantically. “What’s the matter with my beautiful face?”

“Nothing. It’s beautiful.” Noah giggled as he sat a coke can in front of Adam and took his seat in between Henry and Gansey. Henry switched his phone to the camera setting and yelped when he saw his own reflection (the stressed-out girl sitting across the aisle looked ready to snap a neck at one more outburst). He touched the mustache unbelievably before licking his thumb and smudging the sharpie off his face. He trained his gaze on Noah.

“You,” he pointed to Noah, “--might look like an angel, but you’re an evil little demon on the inside.”

“If I was an evil little demon, I would have drawn a penis on the side of your face instead. Besides, you have to be nice to me. I brought you your favorite.” Noah grinned. Henry picked up the bag of skittles on his lap.

“Sour Skittles.” They both said it at the same time before pausing and smiling at each other.  When the staring grew too prolonged, Noah’s eyes flickered away. Henry went back to checking out his reflection in the camera.

“I already wasted time on a forty minute nap. I can't waste any more time trying to wash this off.” He sighed, but Adam had a sneaking suspicion that Henry wanted to keep it there because it made Noah giggled.

“I think it makes you look very sophisticated,” Adam smirked. Noah snorted.

“I’m screwed. It’s--" Henry worriedly glanced down at his phone. “2:47 in the morning. This exam is at 9 am. And I wasted forty-five minutes of precious study time. All I wanted was to save the rainforest.”

“Apparently saving the rainforest involves environmental chemistry,” Gansey said.

“You’ll do fine. We’ll just do the math and figure out what is the lowest possible grade you can pass with.” Noah’s face lit up with an idea. “Then I’ll help you study. I don't have any exams until Tuesday afternoon.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Henry swooned. Adam could practically see the heart eyes popping out of his head.

“Mhm, we can power through for another hour or two, and then you should really get at least a few hours of sleep in before this exam.” Noah leaned in closer to Henry to get a better look at his notes and his textbook.

“You drooled on the book.” He said before swiping the puddle of saliva with his finger and then down Henry’s nose, cackling. What was supposed to be Noah and Henry studying had turned into the two literally exchanging Henry’s saliva. It would have been cute if it wasn't so damn gross.

Adam phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out. There was an unread message from Gansey. Adam glanced up to find Gansey staring back at him before he pointed down at his own phone.

 **Gansey (2:57 am):** This has to be the most unsanitary thing I have been forced to witness.

Adam’s lips broke into a grin before he started to text back.

 **Me (2:58 am):** Agreed.

 **Me (2:58 am):** Ah, to be young and in love.

 **Gansey (2:59 am):** Yes, well, you don't see me wiping my saliva on you.

Adam’s fingers froze over the screen, and his chest gave a mighty lurch. He reread the text over and over, and each time, his mind short-circuiting over the implications of the text. Was he just playing along with Adam? Or did Gansey mean to imply... _much more_? Adam realized that he had been holding his breath again. Adam’s phone pinged with another incoming text.

 **Gansey (3:02 am):** I wanted to resume our conversation from earlier.

Adam held in a sigh.

 **Me (3:03 am):** About the dancing?

 **Gansey (3:03 am):** That would be the one.

 **Me (3:03 am):** Really, I thought this was the conversation where we were trying to decide whether to let the ring aid Gondor or cast it in Mordor.

 **Gansey** **(3:04 am):** It’s really sexy when you use LotR references.

 **Me (3:04 am):** Yeah?

 **Gansey (3:05 am):** It was almost enough to distract me from the fact that we have to talk about the dancing. What are you going to do when someone approaches you for a dance?

 **Me (3:07 am):** Are you going to ask me for a dance?

Adam typed back, and the sentiment underlining the statement was clear because Adam heard Gansey inhale sharply. When he glanced up from his phone, Gansey was staring at him. His gaze quickly broke away from Adam. He had his answer.

 **Gansey (3:11 am):** Adam...

 **Me (3:12 am):** I know. I get it. And because I am being so understanding, I think this should give me a free pass.

 **Gansey (3:13 am):** Adam…

This time Adam’s name was written in a completely different context.

 **Me (3:13 am):** Gansey...

 **Gansey (3:14 am):** Have I told you how absolutely besotted I am with you?

It was ridiculous the way Adam’s chest fluttered like a pair of songbirds as he read the word _besotted_.

 **Me (3:15 am):** Flattery will get you nowhere.

But it was most definitely softening Adam’s resolve.

 **Me (3:16 am):** Also, I can’t believe you just used the word besotted. You’re ancient.

 **Gansey (3:17 am):** Perhaps my sweet love sonnet shall convince you otherwise...

 **Gansey (3:20 am):** _That time of year thou mayst in me behold_

 _When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang_  
_Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,_  
_Bare_ ruin'd _choirs, where late the sweet birds sang._ **(View More)**

Adam burst into laughter. The girl across the aisle slammed her book with a flourish, glaring daggers at them as she moved across the library.

“Do we want to know?” Henry asked.

“Probably not.” Gansey was wearing an _absolutely besotted_ smile.

“Then keep the flirting to a minimum. Some of us have exams in less than six hours,” he said, before going back to studying. Surprisingly, Noah was fully absorbed in studying with him. Gansey watched them for a while before he leaned across the table. He spoke quietly.

“So you’ll let me teach you how to waltz?”

Adam rolled his eyes. “We’re still on this? Fine, I’ll learn, but I’m not promising anyone a dance. Including you.”

Gansey seemed amused by this, giving him a little closed-lipped smile. “Including me?” He repeated.

“Especially you.”

It was impossible to say no to Gansey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think. Comment, leave a kudos, bookmark, send a message via pigeon. If you would like to obsess about Adansey or TRC in general, feel comfortable to talk to me on [tumblr.](http://rarity-kasket.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Until we meet again! xoxo, Kasket!!!!


	2. Under the Influence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey peeps, I'm back with an update a few days early. It's been sort of a terrible day so far, so I am making myself feel better by updating. Hopefully, by making myself feel better, I'm making your day a lot better with an update! 
> 
> For those of you without a tumblr or just happened to miss it on tumblr, [ the talented Wizcrd ](http://wizcrd.tumblr.com/) made some amazing art for this particular chapter. So here is the [ link ](http://neberia.tumblr.com/post/172902782653/so-this-is-love-written-by-the-amazing) to go check it out. There will be more art to follow. So please go like it, reblog it, or stare at it like a pretty pretty princess all day. Enjoy!

Adam Parrish had a 73.6 percent chance of being buzzed right now. He had done the math and calculated the number of drinks along with the quantity amount poured into each glass over a certain time frame since he took his first sip, taking his weight and height into account before he reached a consensus. The verdict was that he had a 73.6 percent chance of being slightly inebriated. 

Earlier that evening, he had asked the young man carrying a tray filled with flutes of golden, bubbling liquid whether it was the champagne or ginger ale. The young man hesitated, squinted at the glass, and declared that it was definitely ginger ale. That should have been Adam’s first and only indication, but he had foolishly drunk three or four more glasses during the course of the evening. The memory was hazy.

Life appeared simpler in champagne-tinted glasses. Under the influence of alcohol, Adam was transported to an alternate universe where everything was hilarious and everything made him laugh. An ex-museum curator, an equally intoxicated woman if not more, had accidentally spilled some of her coke and brandy on the sleeve of Adam’s dinner jacket, and they spent five minutes laughing about it as if they were longtime acquaintances in on an inside joke. 

Despite how light and carefree he felt, Adam wasn’t particularly enjoying the way the champagne shot through his bloodstream. He felt time slowing and stretching and bending around him like liquid molding in the shape of its container. His mind had drifted far beyond the clouds, beyond rational and coherent thought. Everything was fuzzy, light, and dizzy. It was like walking on a teeter-totter balanced on top of a spinning teacup. Adam had politely excused himself from a group of historians debating furiously over whether or not humanity would have been better off under a hunter-gatherer civilization before he stumbled upstairs, laughing quietly to himself when he tripped up the stairs. 

Professor Malory was hosting a small Christmas gathering with different scholars, curators,  and historians he had worked with over the years, and Gansey was included in that group. Gansey and Adam were also the youngest attendees at this party as most of the party guests were well into their fifties and beyond. 

Professor Malory’s home was huge. It was the quintessential New England home with its 18th-century style, white picket fence, large fireplace, grandiose portraits hanging off the walls, and ancient antiques dating back to the Revolutionary War. According to Malory, George Washington once attended a party in this very home. Two hundred years later, Adam Parrish would be attending a party of his own in the very same house. 

Adam found a bathroom while wandering upstairs. He closed the door behind him and caught a quick glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looked so boyish, his cheeks bright salmon. Adam crossed to the sink, splashed his face with water, and then cupped his palms under the faucet, bringing his hand to his mouth to drink. A knock on the door made him jump and spill water down his front. 

“Shit,” he murmured as he inspected the wet spot. It was small, and Adam could cover it with his jacket until it dried. Another knock rapped on the wooden door.

“Uh, just give me a minute,” he shouted through the wall. 

Adam wiped his mouth dry and dabbed his shirt with a fresh hand towel before opening the door. Gansey stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, and Adam couldn’t reign in the big, goofy smile fast enough. It was as if he had lost all control of his body’s function. Gansey gave Adam a bemused smile and cocked his head to the side in a questioning expression.

“Why are you smiling like that?” he asked.

“I had too much to drink,” Adam admitted. “And now I can’t stop smiling.”

“Of ginger ale?”

“No, of champagne.”

“But you don’t drink.” Gansey reminded him.

“I don’t. I accidentally drank the champagne instead of the ginger ale.” 

Gansey gave him a long stare before he burst into his own fit of laughter. Laughter, being the infectious beast that it was, tickled Adam with its spindly, invisible fingers. Before he knew it, he was laughing along with Gansey.

“What?” Adam wheezed between giggles.

“You’re forgetting that I also had a flute off that tray. That was definitely ginger ale. Alcohol acts as a social lubricant. Research has shown that you’re more inclined to feel intoxicated around people who have been drinking even if you’re sober. It’s a common occurrence.”

“I’m 73.6 percent sure that I’m a little wasted.” 

In a bold display of affection, Adam leaned forward, wrapping his arms around Gansey’s shoulders, pressing his face into his neck as all of his weight sagged against the other boy. He inhaled Gansey’s scent. He smelled of white musk and vanilla, but underneath the cologne he was wearing, Adam could detect the faint scent of mint that always lingered. He could feel his heartbeat slowing and quietness washing over him like waves lapping on the shore. Adam buried his nose further into Gansey’s throat. 

“I did the math,” Adam mumbled into his neck, brushing his lips against a particularly sensitive spot. Gansey’s shiver sent sparks through Adam like impulses shooting off the end of nerve cells. 

“If you say so,” said Gansey doubtfully. “But we should stay upstairs for a little while until the contact high wears off.” He wrapped his arm around Adam’s waist and walked him down the dark hallway towards a random bedroom down at the end of the hall. They stumbled together like an awkwardly fused two-headed, eight-limbed monster. 

Gansey flicked on the light switch, revealing a sumptuous room with ornate bookshelves filled with masses of books stacked neatly on top of each other. An elegant and brightly lit chandelier hung overhead. However, the thing that caught Adam’s attention was the large portrait of George Washington, posed in all his past glory, sitting above the headboard of a massive bed.  

“How are you supposed to go to sleep with George Washington watching you?” Adam eyed the portrait with suspicion.

“It is a rather odd place for him to be.”

They staggered towards the bed, and Gansey gently deposited him there. Adam closed his eyes, buried his face in the comfortable, quilted mattress, and smiled. 

“You know you’re not actually drunk, right? You just think you are.” Gansey’s voice cut through the darkness.

“Hm, I don’t believe you. I believe in numbers and science.”

“How many ginger ales did you have?”

“Champagne. I don’t know...four or five?”

The space next to him on the bed dipped slightly. Adam cracked one eye open and found Gansey laying on his side with one arm propping him up. He was smiling amusingly at him with warm liquid pools of hazel for eyes. His smile made Adam ache with want. Adam’s lips part slightly as a slow heat prickled down his neck and shoulders. Adam studied Gansey closely, watching him pull his glasses off and blow on them before wiping down the lens with his cardigan. Days prior, his contacts had ripped, and he had been forced to wear his glasses while waiting for another pair of contacts to ship.

Seeing Gansey with glasses for the first time had surprised Adam, but he had grown to love the sight of it. They softened the lines in his face, made them kinder. And suddenly, he looked less like a Ralph Lauren model with a Hollywood smile and more like the boy with the stars in his eyes and dreams of Glendower swimming in his head.

“I like you with glasses.” Adam blurted out.

“You do?” Gansey glanced up at him quickly before he slipped his glasses back on.

“It makes your face kinder.” 

“Are you saying that I have a mean face?” Gansey asked, and it made Adam laughed. 

“No, I’m saying that you look a lot more like yourself.”

“I always look like myself.”

“Don’t be a smart ass. I’m saying that I like seeing you like this.” Adam smiled up at Gansey, and his hand touched Gansey’s face, his thumb tenderly sweeping across his cheekbone. Gansey didn’t say anything for a long while and glanced up at the portrait of George Washington hovering over the bed. Adam’s gaze went up too.

“Did you know that George Washington didn’t actually have wooden dentures? There is evidence to support that his false teeth may have been pulled from his slaves.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“I concur.”

Adam’s gaze floated down from the pompous portrait of Washington on the wall. Gansey was staring fixedly at him like an art piece in need of admiring. It made his mouth dry and his pulse race. Before Adam could ask him what that look was about, Gansey was closing the gap between them slowly. Adam closed his eyes, and his mouth tilted up to meet Gansey’s, to inhale the sweet scent of him. Gansey’s warm breath fanned over his face as he laughed quietly. Adam couldn’t help the smile growing on his face, growing brighter and brighter and more uncontained by the second.

“What’s so funny?” Adam asked, opening his eyes. Gansey’s expression twinkled with mirth and warmth.

“Nothing. You’re just very eager tonight, more than usual.” 

“Shut up and kiss me already,” Adam mumbled as his gaze flickered down to Gansey’s mouth. 

They performed a special slow dance, Gansey drawing nearer and Adam rolling unto his back until, finally, their bodies laid side by side like two puzzle pieces fitting together. Gansey’s face dipped forward, their noses brushed together, and their lips skimmed over each other like fingertips grazing over water. Adam inhaled sharply, his chin tilting up, and Gansey pulled back just enough so their mouths wouldn't quite touch. He played a hellish game of cat and mouse, teasing their mouths together and pulling away whenever Adam got too close.The game was equal parts frustrating and exhilarating, and Adam made a deep-pitched moan that reverberated deep within him.  

Gansey’s mouth was on his so sudden and so hot and so full. His kisses were sizzling like a flame, catching Adam’s skin and setting wildfires. Adam’s lips parted open, and Gansey slid his tongue into Adam’s mouth. The voice in the back of Adam brain that analyzed every subtle movement and filtered all thoughts and speech had muted. His head was stuffed with cotton balls, and his feelings sloshed over like too much water in a fishbowl. All of his thoughts were Gansey. The feel of him, Adam’s hands unbuttoning Gansey’s shirt and sliding against the soft skin of his belly, his fingers tracing the trail of hair that led south. The way Gansey’s mouth tasted of the eggnog. The faint and lingering scent of mint underneath the musk and vanilla. The way that Adam wanted Gansey like he never wanted anything else. 

“We shouldn't be doing this.” Gansey giggled breathlessly, pressing Adam into the mattress and inhaling sharply when Adam’s fingers slid even further south. Gansey’s breath was hot in his hearing ear, pressing heated kisses there.“Christ, we definitely shouldn't be doing this in front of George Washington.”

“I love you.” 

The words tumbled out of his mouth. They were messy and ragged and breathless and without any caution or forethought. Gansey’s mouth stopped moving, and he slowly untangled himself to get a good, long glimpse of Adam’s face. He appeared one-third disoriented, one-third dubious, and one-third petrified. The hitch in his breath made Adam painfully aware that he said the wrong words.

“Maybe we should stop,” Gansey said quietly, running his fingers over his wet lips. “I don’t think we’re in the appropriate headspace to be doing  _ this _ .” Gansey fumbled with his pants zipper and the buttons of his shirt. “Obviously, because you just said--” Gansey paused, his brow furrowed as his gaze searched Adam’s face before leaning in to get a closer view of Adam’s eyes. “Your pupils do appear dilated. We should get you some water. I should have done that in the first place.” He berated himself as he stood up and straightened his appearance.

Meanwhile, Adam’s neck and ears grew hot with embarrassment. He wanted to take the words back and shove them in his mouth and up his brain where they would never see the light of day again. A pair of footsteps sounded from down the hall, and Adam sat up moments before Professor Malory popped his head in.

The professor’s eyes bounced between Adam and Gansey, raising a curious eyebrow. “I saw the light from down the hall. What are you two doing up here?” 

“I just needed to lay down for a bit. Gansey was keeping me company.” 

Malory’s gray, furry brows drew together. “Are you alright, my dear boy? You’re not ill, are you?” 

“I’m fine, just a bit woozy I suppose. I’m feeling a lot better at the moment now.” Adam forced a smile.

“Ah, I see.” Malory accepted Adam’s explanation, nodding his head understandably as if he was one of those souvenir bobbleheads. “Well, take it easy on the eggnog from now on Mr. Parrish.” The professor turned his attention to Gansey. “When you’re finished assisting Mr. Parrish, Dr. Copenhagen has just arrived with his wife, and he is eager to meet with you. I’ve been hyping you up for months now. If you can charm him, which you will, of course, that internship will be yours this summer.” 

“I’ll be down soon then,” replied Gansey.

Malory’s departure ushered in an age of obtrusive and interminable silence, dividing the boys like two ships passing in the night. Adam sobered right up, and all of his light-headed giddiness evaporated. The drop to reality had been swift and brutal.

“We should get back to the party. Dr. Copenhagen is probably looking forward to speaking with you.” Adam said quietly.

“Adam. I should explain--” Gansey started.

“No, you were right to stop earlier.” And as the words tumbled out of his mouth, Adam felt his walls coming up, and that voice in the back of his mind came back at full volume, deafening in his ears. “I don’t even know what overcame me to say--”

“It’s not that I--” Gansey began.

“--something so  _ stupid _ .” Adam finished

“Oh.” Gansey winced. 

Adam watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. He appeared lost for a second before taking a step backward and inhaling. Gansey smiled, but it had lost a lot of its brightness from earlier. For the second time that night, Adam couldn’t help but feel that he had said the wrong thing. 

“It’s fine. We all say things we don’t mean in the heat of the moment. We should get you a glass of water. You’ll regret it if you don’t.” Gansey held out his hand to Adam and helped him off the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you peeps enjoyed the chapter. Please leave a comment. Let me know what you thought, what you liked, what you disliked, or what you found interesting. Don't forget to kudos, bookmark, and subscribe for future updates! Also, come find me on tumblr as Rarity-Kasket!!! We can gab about Adansey and TRC! Until we meet again!
> 
> xoxo, Kasket


	3. The Christmas Gift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No note or update. Just enjoy!

Adam regretted opening his mouth at all. The two had gone back downstairs after the embarrassing event and resumed mingling with the guests as if nothing had happened, as if Adam hadn’t told Gansey that he loved him, and the other hadn’t stared back at him like he found out that Adam was an ax murderer. After the party, Gansey drove Adam back to his dorm, and they had even kissed goodnight.

Still, Adam regretted his decision well into the next day. Was it too early to use the _L_ word? Did Gansey just not feel that way about Adam at all? He had no way of telling, and as desperate as he was for answers, it would take a long time for Adam to get over the burning humiliation before he gathered the courage to ask Gansey any of those questions.

Adam looked at the mess in his room. Clothes and other items were strewn on the bed as Adam decided what would go with him and what would stay. In a few hours, Helen would be picking them up via helicopter and flying them to Washington DC, and tomorrow, they would drive to Henrietta for a few days to gather information on Glendower.

Adam opened his closet door, dug inside, and pulled down a shoe box before flipping the top open. Inside the shoe box was another box neatly dressed in Christmas paper with a red little bow on top. It was Gansey’s Christmas gift that Adam had worked tirelessly to save up for by taking extra shifts at the campus bookstore.

“Boo!”

Adam flinched, fumbling with the Christmas gift before clutching it tightly to his chest. He turned to find Noah in the doorway of the closet, mouth stretched in a wide grin.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Adam said.

“Yeah, that was kind of the point! Did I scare you? I totally scared you, huh? I’m like a ghost or a ninja or a ghost ninja. But not like a ninja who had been murdered and now they are a ghost. Like being murdered would suck balls! I’m talking about a ghost who happens to be a ninja too. That would be rad, huh? I mean, it would be cool because how many ninja ghosts are out there in the world? Probably not that many but also how useful is a ghost ninja if your enemies are also ghost so what’s the point if you’re both already dead and can’t die twice because then you would be useless and you’ll have to quit your job and work in the ghost corporate sector in a sad marriage because your wife is in love with the ghost that you used to be and you’re always working late and she thinks you're cheating on her but really you’re at the ghostbar pounding away on those Jack Daniels trying to find a reason to live...or not live at the bottom of the glass. And wow! That got dark super fast! Maybe it is a good thing ghost ninjas don’t exist.” Noah talked a mile per minute, and Adam had trouble following his ping-ponging thoughts. What was the point of this?

“What?”

“Nevermind. I’ll discuss it with Henry. He’ll understand.” Noah’s eyes drifted down to the box that Adam held in his hand. “Oooh! What’s that? What’s in the box?” He pointed to the wrapped present.

“It’s Gansey’s Christmas gift. Where are you coming from anyway?” Adam asked.

“Oh, Henry and I went out for breakfast at Bella’s. It was Henry’s idea. It was his treat, he said, for helping him study for his chemistry exam. I told him that it wasn’t necessary, but he insisted.”

“You and Henry have been spending a lot of time together.” Adam walked out of the closet, carefully wrapping Gansey’s Christmas gift in a worn Coca Cola shirt and setting it in his suitcase.

“Really? You think?” Noah’s pallid cheeks grew flushed with color before shaking his head. “I don't think so. I hope you don’t feel excluded or anything. I mean, we would have invited Gansey and you, but Henry thought that maybe you two wanted to sleep in.”

“How _thoughtful_ of Henry.” Adam was positive that wasn’t _the reason_ as to why Gansey and he weren’t invited to breakfast this morning.

Noah skipped over to the bed, pushing over a pile of junk to make room as he perched on top of Adam’s bed and watched him fold clothes into his suitcase.

“So how was it?” Noah asked, his keen sapphire eyes followed Adam’s every move curiously.

“How was what?”

“How was the Christmas party? Did you drink a lot of eggnog?”

“The eggnog had rum in it. 

Noah frowned as he reclined against Adam’s pillow with his arms folded behind his head.

“Bummer. I don’t know what I would do without Peach Schnapps. Probably die.” He contemplated. “But if you couldn’t enjoy the eggnog, you enjoyed the party, right?”

Adam wanted to tell Noah about accidentally mistaking champagne for ginger ale. He would get a laugh out of that, but the fresh memory of his embarrassing confession to Gansey had pushed its way to the forefront of his mind. Something in his face must have alluded to Adam’s discomfort because Noah quickly picked up on it.

“What happened last night? Did you two fight or something?”

Adam paused in his shirt folding, which spoke more volumes than any word that could come out his mouth.

“No…” Adam said, quietly. Honestly, he had no idea if they were. It didn't feel like fighting, but things between Gansey and he weren’t normal after what Adam had done. “I trust that you can keep this to yourself.”

Noah pretended to zip his fingers across his lips before throwing the key across the room.

“I’m guessing that is a yes.” Adam received an enthusiastic nod from his roommate. He launched into the details of last night’s events. Noah listened attentively as Adam explained the upstairs bathroom, he and Gansey in Malory’s guest bedroom minus a few intimate details, and the unfortunate mistake Adam made in telling Gansey that he loved him.

“That’s… rough,” Noah said after a moment of silence had passed between the two. “He didn't say anything back?”

“He was trying to get me to drink water after that. Saying it under the influence doesn't make it a legitimate confession.”

“Okay, simple then. Next time you see him, just tell him you love him again. He’ll have to believe you because you won’t be drunk.”

It was the worst advice Adam had ever heard. The last thing he wanted was another rejection.

“I’m not doing that.”

“Why not?” Noah sat up in the bed.

“Because I rather not traumatize myself any more than I already have.”

“I think you should tell Gansey the very next time you see him. Burst into a song! I’ll help you write a song! Let’s see.” Noah tapped his chin in thought before he burst into an ear-splitting, tone-deaf song.“ _OH GANSEY YOU ARE TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, AND I THINK I AM FALLING MADLY FOR YOU. I WANNA MAKE SEXY TIME WITH YOU BOO. OH GANSEY BABY, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME TOO.”_ When he had finished, Noah fell forward, cracking up at the worst rhymed couplet that Adam had ever heard. It made Adam laugh too.

“That might be the worst song I have been forced to listen to, and I’ve listened to Henry’s 80’s music fetish.”

“Don’t drag Madonna into this.” Noah grinned before climbing off of Adam’s bed. He rolled up a random shirt and tucked it into the suitcase before he wrapped his arms around Adam and laid his head on his shoulder. After a few small awkward seconds on Adam’s part, he relaxed into the embrace, leaning against Noah. “I still think it’s worth a shot trying to tell him again, or at least talk to him about it. If you use my song though, I expect full credit and royalties.”

Later that afternoon, Adam, Gansey, and Henry would board a helicopter bounded for DC. Adam hated flying, and being stuck on a two-hour helicopter ride wasn't Adam’s preferred method of travel. Every once in awhile, Gansey would turn around and throw sympathetic glances at him from the front with Helen until they landed on a tarmac where a silver Audi was waiting for the four of them. Helen led the way to the car, occasionally turning her head back to throw coy smiles in Adam’s direction.

Gansey and he walked side by side with the back of their hands occasionally brushing against each other, and Adam moved in closer so that the friction of their skin rubbing together caught with every swing. Each brush sent sparks shooting off Adam’s skin, and heat slowly enveloped him, running down his fingertips and up his arm. Adam craved for more, but he forced the hungry, lustful beast deep into its cave and told himself to be content with threadbare scraps of touches for now. Once when their hands brushed, Gansey lingered a little longer before his arm swung forward, and Adam knew that Gansey must have seen right through him.They all piled into the Audi together with Adam crammed in the back with Henry while Gansey and Helen exchanged conversation about the Christmas Gala in the front.

“For once a relatively quiet holiday would be nice. Last year was a New Years Eve party, and this year is a Christmas Gala.” Helen sighed.

“I can't wait to see what we’ll do for Hanukkah next year,” Gansey replied, humorously. He was staring out of the passenger window, watching as they cruised slowly through heavy North Virginia traffic. It was a step up from the stand-still traffic they were sitting in a few minutes ago.

“We’re not Jewish,” Helen said as if she couldn't believe her brother had said something so stupid.

“It was a joke,” Gansey clarified. “You know, one of those things that you laugh at.”

“You can be a real dick sometimes.” Helen wore a grin that told all of them that she had been sitting on that pun for a while. Helen's eyes shifted to the rearview mirror. “I’m sure Dick told you all about the ridiculous waltz my mother has planned for the gala. She got the idea from her old debutante days.”

At the mention of dancing, Adam’s heart dropped into his stomach. He had a matter of days to learn the waltz, and he was dreading every second leading to his inevitable lessons with Gansey.

“I’m honestly more excited about the mini cocktail shrimps,” Henry said

“I am sure some of my mother’s colleagues will bring their daughters and granddaughters,” Helen said.

“Unfortunately Helen, my heart calls to another. And out of respect for that person, I shall abstain.”

“Alright…”  Helen’s gaze slid over to Adam. “What about you? Are you saving a dance for special someone? No doubt women will swarm the first chance they see you. You’re boyfriend material.”

“Did you just ask that question so you could shamelessly ask Adam for a dance? Aren’t you a little too old for him?” Gansey asked, and Helen huffed in response, her cheeks growing a slight tinge of pink.

“Calling me old is a little hypocritical. You went from kindergartener to that old man who tells the kids to get off their lawn.”

“Eh, no. That’ll be Adam. He’s the salty one.” Henry corrected Helen. “Gansey is more of the grandpa who tells the old war stories that no one wants to listen to.”

“And who will you be?” Adam asked, failing at keeping the bitterness from seeping into his voice at the fact that Henry just called him salty.

“Oh, I’ll be in the prime of my life. Even in my sixties, I’ll still look thirty. Eternal youth is one of the few blessings given to those without white privilege.”

After suffering through a grueling traffic jam, they finally made it to the Gansey family’s mansion in Northern Virginia. Upon their arrival, Margo, Gansey’s housekeeper, told them that Mr. and Mrs. Gansey were out on important errands in preparation for the Gala and would be back any minute now.

“More like any day now. The traffic on I 66 is horrid,” Helen told Margo.

The boys went to put their belongings away. The mansion was huge enough that each boy had his own private bedroom, which Adam found ridiculous for a family whose children had moved out. Yet Adam craved for the day that he had his own sprawling mansion with more bedrooms than necessary. Adam still dreamed of lavish suits galore, that big prosecutor job, and his rags to riches story. The only difference… his dreams had expanded to make room for Gansey. Between those suits were images of watering mint plants on the window sill each morning and filling their bookshelves to the brim with books and pouring over pages and pages of ancient magical artifacts many last nights. Adam bit down on his bottom lip as he unzipped his suitcase on top of the bed. He was in the same room as last Christmas, the same room he had shared his first kiss with Gansey.

There was a knock on the door, and Adam’s head shot up. Gansey was standing there in the doorway.

“Do you mind if I come in?” he asked from the threshold.

“This is your house. I’m sure you can go wherever you want.” Adam said, crossing the room to put some of his pants in a drawer.

“True. I thought that I would be polite.” Gansey said as he entered before sitting on the bed, watching Adam walk back and forth a few times. “After dinner, we should prep for our Glendower excursion tomorrow.”

“What’s the plan?” Adam asked, and Gansey shrugged.

“I don't know.” Gansey’s mouth pressed together in a thin line. He appeared less animated than he usually looked when discussing Glendower. Normally, Adam couldn't get him to stop talking about it. Gansey’s pensive expression set Adam on the edge.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been going in circles with this Glendower thing recently. We haven’t found anything groundbreaking in months, and none of the information we have found has led us anywhere. I feel like…” Gansey paused and sighed glumly. He turned his head towards the balcony window with his pensive and furrowed brows. “I’m missing a large chunk of the puzzle. There is something that is supposed to be tying this all together, and I’ve overlooked something, or I haven’t found it yet. And that’s why I haven’t made progress recently.”

“Then maybe this trip is exactly what you need. It’s been a while since you’ve been in Henrietta, the summer at least.”

Last summer, while Adam completed an internship, Gansey had purchased an old brick warehouse that he had converted into an apartment. He spent most of the summer getting to know the quaint and sleepy town of Henrietta and its residents. He even made a close friend while he was there. Something about rustic Henrietta had captured the heart of Gansey, much to Adam’s liking. While Gansey saw Henrietta through rose-tinted glasses, it was the place where Adam had only known violence and fear. Henrietta was painted with nothing but bad memories for him.

“Why are you so anxious about finding him all of the sudden?” When Gansey didn’t answer him, Adam continued. “I know this means the world to you, but finding Glendower wouldn’t be as rewarding if the journey was that easy. You’ve been waiting for years for this moment.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“If it makes you feel better, tonight we can look through the _Henrietta Gazette_ ’s archived articles for any strange and probable supernatural events connected to Glendower. That is a start and a possible lead.”

A faint smile slowly etched itself into Gansey’s mouth. It seemed to brighten his spirits considerably. “I would like that.”

“I can even make an excel spreadsheet to organize and track the articles. And you can make an evidence board to chart connections.”

“Adam Parrish, you absolutely know the way to my heart.” Gansey’s smile only grew wider, and Adam’s own heart skipped a beat.

“Well, it’s not very hard. All I have to do is say something that sounds remotely intelligent, and you’ll melt.” Adam smirked.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, for instance, Plato’s _Euthydemus_ is one of the earliest philosophy pieces to discuss happiness. And Socrates argues that, one, everyone desires happiness because it is an unconditional good, and two, it is--"

“Wisdom or, as he calls it, virtue that makes us happy. Beauty and money and other external things don’t guarantee true happiness, but if you are wise with your resources you can obtain happiness.” Gansey finished, and the way Gansey’s wet lips had parted told Adam that he had Gansey exactly where he wanted him.

“I could make an argument that wisdom itself isn't sufficient enough for happiness, but that it’s the pursuit of wisdom rather than possessing--"

“I really want to kiss you right now if you would let me.” Gansey had interrupted with the brazen statement, his eyes flickered over to the empty doorway.

“I would let you.”

Their mouths found a way back to each other just as Orpheus had found his way to Eurydice in the underworld. It was desperate and sloppy and passionate. Adam’s eyes fluttered closed, and he made a soft noise in the back of his throat that seemed to encourage Gansey, his hands sliding into Adam’s hair and pulling their mouths closer.

“We should probably stop--" Gansey groaned, pulling away reluctantly, and Adam’s mouth chased his lips, planting a series of messy kisses on his mouth and his chin and his jaw and then his mouth again. “--before anyone walks in.”

Gansey had successfully pulled away while Adam was left breathless and panting before he resumed unpacking just to give himself something busy and mindless to do.

“I’ll help you unpack.” Gansey offered, looking down at the open suitcase.

“It’s fine. I can do that on my own.” Adam resisted the urge to make a face

“What?” Gansey asked. “Why are you making that face?”

“What face?”

“That face.” Gansey pointed to it. “It’s not like I asked for your firstborn.”

“You don’t have to do things like that for me.”

“It’s just putting clothes in a drawer.” Gansey reminded him, but Adam still felt inexplicably sick watching Gansey pick up a pair of his jeans.

“Shouldn't you be unpacking your own things?”

“I can do that later tonight.” Gansey reached for the Coca Cola shirt in the suitcase, and Adam instantly remembered what was wrapped in the Coca Cola shirt. Adam slammed the suitcase’s flap down with more force than he meant to, causing Gansey to lean back in alarm. Gansey’s gaze traveled from Adam to the bag back to Adam, and then the bag.

‘You already do too much for me.” Adam said.

“That’s funny because I feel like you don’t let me do anything for you.”

“That’s not true.” Adam felt himself on the defense.

“You were upset two weeks ago when I tried to buy that new satchel for you.”

“Because you wanted to buy me a gift when Christmas is around the corner, and the bookbag I have is just fine,” Adam snapped back.

“The backpack you have is dreadful. You had to sew the strap back on after it popped off before Thanksgiving. I think you deserve a new satchel and whatever else I wanted to get you for Christmas.”

Adam paused before a gradual frown marred his features, and whatever desire he felt for Gansey was replaced with annoyance.

“You got me more than one gift for Christmas, didn't you?” he accused. Gansey’s face had grown flushed and bashful in response. “Unbelievable,” Adam briefly closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe.

“Adam…”

“I thought we agreed on one gift for each of us.” Adam kept his voice even. “And then you went behind my back and got the messenger bag that I _specifically_ told you not to get.”

“They’re just Christmas gifts. Why are we even arguing about this? And I saw the way you looked at that satchel the day we found it. You really wanted it. I know you did, and I just wanted to do something kind for you.”

Gansey had read him so well, and Adam’s face flushed with shame. They had gone to the mall to look for preliminary ideas for Henry and Noah’s Christmas gifts when they had stumbled upon a perfect oxblood satchel with brass clips that shined like a new penny. Adam must had looked at it too longingly because Gansey had wanted to buy it for him on the spot. Thankfully Adam talked him out of it, but it led to a terrible argument between them.

“Whatever,” Adam sighed. “The damage is done. You’ve already bought it.”

“But you’re upset about it.” Gansey frowned.

Adam performed an emotional assessment, trying to pinpoint the exact emotions of what he felt at the moment. The more he stripped back...the more he felt all of his insecurities boiling to the surface. He had only gotten Gansey one gift because that is what they discussed. Even then, he took extra shifts just to afford it. The nice satchel Gansey wanted to buy him had cost more than the gift Adam had gotten for Gansey. He imagined the other gifts would be just as expensive. He was going have to find time to shop for another gift for Gansey with money he clearly didn't have, and even then, whatever he found would be shit compared to whatever Gansey had gotten him.

“No. I’m not upset.” Adam was surprised to find that true. He sat on the bed next to Gansey and laid his head on his shoulder as a physical peace offering. “But no more Christmas gifts.” He looked up at Gansey sternly.

“Unless I really think you need this item.”

“Gansey.”

“Okay fine, no more.” He smiled. “No more Christmas gifts.”

They kissed and made up, sitting in a quiet silence. Gansey’s hand slid into his hair again, tracing gentle pattern into his scalp. Adam closed his eyes. He didn't need Gansey to buy him a new satchel or put his clothes away for him because small moments like these were all he needed, and they were enough.

“Adam, I--"

“Yeah?”

“Well, there is something I want to discuss with you. It’s the reason I stopped by your room.”

Adam opened his eyes and pulled away from Gansey.

“And here I thought it was my perfect teeth that tempted you to come say hello.”

“You do keep great dental hygiene, but that’s not why. Not really. I’m hesitant to even broach the subject.” Gansey’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed thickly. “I wanted to discuss what happened at Malory's party.”

Oh. They had yet to bring up Malory’s party, and the humiliation was fresh like a band-aid slapped over a wound. Adam stood, turning away from Gansey.

“We talked about it at the party the other night. I had few too many drinks, and I said--" Adam swallowed. “Well, you know what I said. It’s fine that you didn't say it back, but are we...good? I didn’t make things uncomfortable, did I? Unless I misread the signals...”

“Oh no, we’re good. We're more than good.” Gansey rushed to clarify. “I thought I should explain myself and clarify things. It was a confusing night.” Gansey furrowed his brow. “But the truth is--”

“There you are!” Mrs. Gansey stood in the doorway presentationally, wearing her winner's smile and holding a small box in her hands. Even in old age, she had the figure and looks of a model out of an Italian Vogue magazine spread. Gansey had her smile. They had the same smile that could charm someone into jumping off a cliff. Her gaze drifted to Adam and her smile instantly grew perkier and radiant in the presence of an audience. “Hello, Adam. I’m so pleased that you’re joining us for the holidays again.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Gansey. Congratulations on your win in the Senate.”

Mrs. Gansey made a flattered noise and waved a dismissive hand at Adam. “Please call me Carol, and that is rather sweet of you.” She walked into the guest room and held out a box to Gansey, who blinked owlishly at it for a moment before realizing that his mother held his new contact lenses.

“They came in the mail today Just in time too. I was worried that the Christmas holiday would slow down the delivery.”

“Thanks,” Gansey said before taking the box.

“You’ll look even more handsome in the contacts for the pictures we’ll take at the Gala.”

“Pictures?” Gansey asked.

“Yes, one of my interns is taking photos at the Gala to update to my site and social media. I have to remind my voters that they elected an official who puts family values first. So Helen, your father, you, and I are taking a few photos together at the event. Nothing over the top, just a few.” Mrs. Gansey looked over at Adam. “I’m sure Gansey has told you all about the Gala at the National Portrait Gallery. Have you been there before?”

“I have not.”

“It's a must see in DC. The artwork is stunning. Wait until you see the ballroom at the Gala, it’s a Southern debutante’s dream. I use to be a debutante, back in the day before I met Gansey’s father.” She smiled dreamily. “I won’t bore you with any of my stories, but there will be lots fun. I told a lot of my colleagues to bring their beautiful young daughters because my son and his friends would be in town.”

Adam and Gansey exchanged eye contact.

“You shouldn't have,” Adam said.

_Really, she shouldn't have._

“You’re a modest young man. I like that about you, Adam Parrish. Don't change that. Anyways, Margo should be finished with supper soon, so make sure to wash up.” Mrs. Gansey said before she left the room. When her footsteps had retreated into silence, Gansey fell back against the bed, sliding his glasses off his face.

“It’s strange how my family keeps trying to set you up with all the eligible young women in DC. I’m suspecting that this Gala might be a trap.”

“If only they knew.”

Gansey turned his head towards Adam and smiled.

“If only.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you peeps enjoyed the chapter. Please leave a comment. Let me know what you thought, what you liked, what you disliked, or what you found interesting. Don't forget to kudos, bookmark, and subscribe for future updates! Also, come find me on tumblr as Rarity-Kasket!!! We can gab about Adansey and TRC! Until we meet again!
> 
> xoxo, Kasket


	4. What is love?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello peeps! I am back with another chapter! You have probably noticed that I'm starting a trend of updating on Mondays and Thursday, so be on the lookout for updates on those days. 
> 
> I really like this chapters. I think it's probably in my top favorites (my favorite has yet to come). Anyways, I would like to give a little warning in particular for this chapter. There is heavy mention of abuse, for readers who might be triggered by that. 
> 
> Enjoy, and I'll see you on Thursday!

 

They headed out bright and early the next morning. Henry was not enthused by this, and no one was allowed to make conversation with him until he had his venti caramel latte with soy. When Henry finally had caffeine in him, Adam was able to ask why he was wearing sunglasses at seven in the morning. 

“Because it’s freaking early, and there are bags under my eyes. You know that my skin doesn’t properly rejuvenate itself until nine-thirty,” Henry replied matter-of-factly before laying himself across the back seat of a cherry red Fiat, which ran smoothly and quietly as they glided along long stretches of highway. The Pig was stuck in New Haven for the Christmas holidays. 

Adam had to admit that he missed the thunderous, ear-splitting roar of the Pig, and all of its chips and dings and clunking and spluttering. Along the way, they alternated between Henry’s music and Gansey’s podcast. Not that it mattered because they spent most of the time talking over the music and noise until they arrived in Henrietta. 

They pulled up to 1136 Monmouth and parked in front of a rusty, gutted warehouse. On the side of the building was a large sign that read Monmouth Manufacturing, the only indication of what the building had previously been used for. Admittedly, Adam never remembered biking past this place before in all of his years living in Henrietta. Upon first glance, the crumbling appearance of Monmouth Manufacturing struck Adam as a very unsophisticated place for someone as polished as Gansey until he thought of the Pig-- ancient, cranky, and well past its golden years. He wondered if the same Gansey who had purchased the Pig all those years ago was the same Gansey who purchased Monmouth. Henry slid his sunglasses up on his head as he climbed out of the car to get a better look at the place.

“So this is where you grew up?” he asked.

“I mean, yeah, but not this part of town. I’ve never noticed this building was just sitting here.”

“It looks better on the inside. Come.” Gansey waved them towards the concrete building. He grinned at the two, eager to show off his apartment. Gansey climbed up to the second floor two steps at a time with Henry and Adam lagging behind before entering the apartment. Gansey had been correct when he said the inside looked better. Taking in all of Monmouth, Adam could see Gansey everywhere. It was an Academician’s dream. The high ceiling soared above them. Each inch of wall was covered with maps from all over the world and photos of the Virginian landscape like a conspiracy theorist’s evidence board. In the corner of the room sat a telescope, and the floor was mapped out with a tiny replica of Henrietta. And everywhere Adam looked, there were mountains of books slumped on top of each other in haphazardous piles. The smell of old books pervaded the air around them.

“Wow,” Henry said, crossing further into the room and slowly spinning around to get a 360 effect.

“I agree.” Gansey’s gaze drifted to Adam, and his eyes were hopeful and keen, the way they always got when Gansey was ready to take on the world. As winter sunlight poured through the window hitting Gansey’s dark hair, Adam couldn’t help but notice how natural he looked, surrounded by his mountains of books and forests of maps. Normally wherever Gansey went, he stuck out, and eyes were drawn to him. But here, one’s eyes would sail right over the beautiful boy. He was an ordinary thing in a menagerie of scholarship and knowledge. 

“So what do you think?” Gansey asked him, biting down on his bottom lip.

“I think that it’s brilliant,” Adam replied.

Henry flopped onto the bed in the middle of the room. “So what’s the game plan?” he asked, folding his arms behind his head and crossing his legs over each other. Adam picked up a discarded issue of  _ Sports Illustrated _ from the floor and flipped mindlessly through it.

“We’ll start at the local hardware store nearby. The battery in my voice recorder is going, and I’m certain they sell batteries there.”

“Cullen’s?” Adam had asked, and Gansey nodded.

“Cool and then?” Henry continued.

“Some light exploring at the churchyard that Adam found information on last night,” Gansey replied.

“Excellent! Abandoned churchyard sounds like a great lead for freaky supernatural stuff.”

They didn't stay at Monmouth for long. Gansey just wanted to show them the place that he spent a good portion of his summer. It was amazing how quickly Gansey had set up the place. Adam would have imagined he had been living there for ages. Gansey had a lot of help from a mysterious friend who owned a farm outside of Henrietta and occasionally street raced with his pet raven. They had bonded and grown close over the short months that Gansey was there. When both Adam and Henry had heard the story at the beginning of the school year, they had laughed so hard that their stomachs hurt. Henry claimed it was fake. Gansey grew blue in the face arguing that this friend “Ronan Lynch" was an actual person who existed. When Henry asked for proof, Gansey floundered. Ronan never answered his phone when Gansey called or text, and Gansey was an old grandpa that didn't bother to take pictures or selfies with Ronan for his social media. Strangely enough, there was one photo on Gansey’s Instagram of a large black raven perched on a white fence giving the camera an angry glare as if to say ‘ _ Fuck off’.  _ Adam called it circumstantial evidence. With this trip to Henrietta, Gansey was eager to prove that Ronan Lynch did indeed existed and had made several calls to Ronan over to course of the morning but heard no reply back.

“Dick III, I love you and all, but this joke has gone way the far,” Henry told him after Gansey had gotten Ronan’s voicemail again and left a message before they left for the hardware store.

They made a short drive to Cullen and Son’s Old Hardware shop. It was one of Adam’s three jobs, along with Boyd’s auto shop and the factory. The doorbell stationed above the door tinkled as they entered. Adam was grateful that an unfamiliar teen was working at the front desk instead of Gary Cullen, Adam’s old boss and the owner of the hardware store. 

“Batteries are on the back wall,” Adam told them as they walked in.

“How do you remember?” Gansey asked, and the tips of his ears grew flushed with color.

“I use to work here part-time,” Adam said, quietly.

“Working man Parrish? I like it. There is something hot about a man working in a hardware shop. Don’t you think, Gansey?”

“Please leave me out of this conversation,” Gansey said as he started to make his way towards the back, leaving them miles behind in his search for batteries.

“You’re no fun!” Henry called out to him before he turned to Adam. They began to walk in a different direction of the store. “Did you like working here at least?” he asked.

“I liked it as much as anyone likes going to work.” Adam mused. He didn’t particularly hate working in the hardware store, but it wasn’t the time of his life either. Gary was understanding and flexible with Adam’s busy schedule, and Adam appreciated that. But Adam didn’t work because he wanted to, or he was saving up for a car or new sneakers or other things that teens at sixteen coveted. He worked because he had to, because his future depended on it, because he had his mother and father to provide for. Adam barely missed the fairy-like tinkle announcing an entrance. Henry started arranging the garden gnomes on the shelves in a peculiar state before snapping photos of them on his phone. 

“What are you doing?” 

“I thought I would send a Snapchat to Noah. He would get a kick out of these gnomes.” Henry answered before he rearranged the gnomes in another hilarious position, posing for a selfie with them. 

“I know this isn’t any of my business, and you’re more than free to decline to answer--”

“You want to know when I’m going to tell him.” Henry finished the statement for Adam. At least, he had the decency to look embarrassed. 

“You don’t have to share.” 

Henry stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “When have I ever been coy around you? I’m an open book. You can ask me anything.” He lips curved into a sharp grin.

“Except that you’re not an open book,” Adam replied. It clearly wasn’t an answer that Henry expected, and he blinked a few times in surprise as his smile faded. “I mean, you’re a bit of a mystery at times. There’s something inside lying just beneath the surface. I can see it in your face sometimes. Something that's just the tip of the iceberg.”

Henry didn’t say anything. Just stared back at Adam with an intense and complicated expression that made Adam feel as if Henry was staring right into his soul and could see every inch of Adam, every scar and bruise that life had marked on him, until that same sharp grin from earlier returned slowly stretching across Henry’s mouth. 

“So you’re saying that it’s just the  _ tip _ ?”

Adam’s eyebrows furrowed in slight confusion. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Just the tip--” The uptake was immediate, and it made Adam pause before he rolled his eyes. Henry burst into laughter. “Real mature.”

“You walked right into it. I couldn’t help myself.” Henry laughed, wiping a tear from his eye. “If you’re so curious about Noah and me, the answer is I don't know. I have yet to figure out how to tell Noah Czerny that I am ridiculously in love with him.”

“And you’re sure that it’s love?” Adam felt his voice go soft. 

“That, or I’ve been weirdly stuck on this one guy for a whole year, which sometimes scares me when I think about it because there’s something so pathetic about it. Like he ruined me in a way, and I’ll never be able to move on.”

“What’s it like?”

“Being ruined by a person?” Henry’s eyebrows squished together. 

“Love.” Even though he knew the feeling he shared for Gansey could be nothing but love. Adam had yet to pinpoint a definition for the word. What was love? He had read textbooks and ancient stories and scientific journals, yet nothing could accurately describe what it was that Adam felt in his heart. He was curious about Henry’s answer to his question. 

“Oh.” When the initial surprise wore off, Henry grew still as a thoughtful expression clouded his features. “Being in love is a lot like that strange reoccurring dream you have where you’re giving a class presentation. You look down and realize that you have no clothes on. You’re naked as the day you came into the world.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“Terrifying, right? Because you’re standing there, putting all of yourself out there for that  _ one  _ person. There’s no hiding. You’re all flesh and bone and heart and flaws and insecurities and yet filled with so many good things too. You’re all of that, and asking that other person to be gentle with you because sometimes you’re a little fragile. You’re hoping they’ll peel off their layers too. That they’ll ask you to hold them in your hands and be gentle because they can be fragile too.” 

“Do you think it’s the same for him?”

“I think people feel love in different ways. I know how I feel about Noah, but I can never tell how he feels about me. Any time it appears like  _ something _ is there, he pulls back. It’s like I want this so badly that my brain imagines that something happened when it was really nothing all along. He’s a mystery to me.” 

“I think he likes you back,” Adam remembered the way Noah blushed on the last day before the break when Adam had mentioned that he was spending a lot of time with Henry lately. 

“What makes you say that?”

Adam opened his mouth--

“I’ll be damned! When Jody told me that she had seen you skulking about Henrietta last Christmas, I swore she was a bonafide liar. You have some nerve showing your face around here.”

It was his father, standing there with his thin lips and hair the color of dry sand blowing in the Dust Bowl. 

It felt like someone had doused Adam in freezing ice water, and every nerve in his body pinched and every joint locked and every muscle squeezed painfully. And his body wasn’t his own. Adam Parrish had stepped outside of himself, quietly hovering above the action as his body stood paralyzed in the middle of the aisle.

Father and son stood across from each other in a stalemate like two cowboys in those old western films. Adam’s gaze slipped from Robert Parrish’s face to the paint cans on the shelf next to him like a marble that had drifted and rolled away. His father followed his gaze before tutting in disapproval. 

“It’s been over a year. You’re not going to say hello? Did you forget your manners at that fancy school of yours?” 

Adam watched his lips part to speak, but no words came out. Even then, he knew what he was trying to say, “No.” 

He wasn’t sure what he was saying no to exactly. If he was saying no to the fact that Yale hadn’t made him forget his manners. Or if he was pleading for Robert Parrish to disappear, but the thing about his father was that there was no getting rid of him. He was like a virus, infecting and attacking the body. A virus never really left the system. It laid dormant, waiting until the body was weak and exposed to strike again and knock it down. 

“Then say hello.”

Adam didn’t say anything. His mouth was dry like a desert. His hands shook at his side as he stared at the paint on the shelves reading the shades of colors on the cans.

Eggshell.

Slipper Satin.

Creme

Eggshell.

Dove White.

Eggshell.

Eggshell.

Eggshell.

Henry must have pieced it together because he tugged on his arm gently, ignoring Adam’s father. “Let’s go wait in the car.” When Henry pulled on Adam’s arm, he didn’t sway. He was rooted to the spot in paralyzing fear. 

“What's the rush?” Robert asked Henry. “It’s just a friendly reunion between father and son. Right, Adam?”

Right, Adam? 

Right, Adam?

Right, Adam?

“Hey Adam, look at me,” Henry said, gently ushering him from the shelves. As they started to move away, all of his father's false pretense from before had dropped.

“You have some nerve to stand there. I mean, abandoning your mother like that. She had to take a job to support us after you left.  _ You _ did that. That’s your fault because you haven’t even bothered to send a fucking nickel since you left for that fancy school of yours. Everyone knows how selfish you’ve been, Adam. I’ve told them.” 

Adam’s whole body shook as tremors dispersed through him. The word abandon wrapped around his brain, pulling tightly and strangling out all of the air. Adam felt dizzy at the logic his father had spun. The logic where he had abandoned his charitable parents, where he was the selfish one, and where he had somehow turned out to be the villain of this story. 

“Good news, Ronan finally got back to me. He can meet up with us later this after--” 

The Adam Parrish outside of his own body, observing the scene unfold, watched as Gansey stopped a little behind Robert Parrish before he slowly brushed past the man. It must have clicked for him because the genuine warmth in his eyes evaporated. His smile remained, but slightly diminished.

“What’s happening here?” Gansey demanded to know. He was using that voice that Adam hated, the one that commanded attention and authority. He reeked of old money in his Italian navy peacoat. Adam’s father sensed it as his eyes traveled down Gansey’s body. 

“Richard Campbell Gansey the III. Gansey as in Senator Gansey who just won the Virginia seat in Congress.” Gansey introduced with a forced hospitality. Gansey held out his hand, and it was far from a polite gesture. It was a challenge. His father hesitated and something in Gansey’s countenance, or in the name Gansey itself had struck fear in him, and he backed down. He took a step back, his eyes flickering to Adam one last time.

“You never had a spine to stand up on your own, did you?” He muttered under his breath as he walked away. 

Adam didn’t move until he heard the bell ring. With the faint chime, Adam’s soul sucked back into his body. He let go of the breath he had been holding, and his shoulder sagged with a great weight. And as he returned to his body, shame flooded him at the knowledge that Henry and Gansey had witnessed his father publicly berate him as he stood there like a shaking, petrified child. Whenever Adam imagined a reunion, he thought he would be independent and fearless and bold. But he felt so powerless and shitty, and every ounce of energy from before had zapped out of his body. 

“Open up a dictionary, turn to the word asshole, you’ll find a picture of that guy right next to it,” Henry grumbled, glaring at the spot where the man stood.

“Jesus Christ,” Gansey swore quietly. He looked at Adam uncertainly, his eyes searching frantically over his face as if looking for any physical damage. “Are you okay?” 

Adam avoided eye contact with him. “I’m fine.”

He was most definitely not fine, and he knew that it was written in the lines of his face. 

Adam’s newfound mood had not only sucked the energy out of him but the entire expedition itself as they arrived at the churchyard. He felt his energy eating at both Henry and Gansey. Henry didn’t laugh or crack witty comments at his normal frequency, and every once in a while. Gansey glanced back at him worriedly like Adam was a glass vase sitting on the edge of the table, threatening to topple over.

They trundled slowly around the remains of the churchyard in relative silence. Neither Henry nor Gansey were willing to hedge the conversation, and Adam could tell that they were skating on thin ice around him, occasionally throwing each other worried glances as if Adam wasn’t clever or observant enough to see. It only fueled his dismal mood. He didn’t want to be a thing that people had to protect and shelter. When enough aimless wandering had occurred for Gansey’s taste, he suggested that they retire. Henry would have agreed with Gansey, but his iPhone buzzed in his pocket. He looked at the screen, and then he looked up at them. 

“It’s Noah.” He sounded amazed that Noah was calling him in the first place. “I’m going to take this.” Henry wandered off which left Gansey and Adam to their own devices. Adam sat on the stairs of the church and shuddered as if something or someone was lingering near him. He had the sudden urge to crank up the EMF in the exact spot he was sitting, but he didn’t have the heart at the moment. Gansey took a seat next to him, radiating with nervous energy.

“I don’t want to talk.”

“So, we’re just not going to discuss it then? At all?” Gansey had asked.

“What’s there to talk about it? You were there for it.”

“Yes, and I’m concerned. Henry said--”

“First, you’re fighting my battles, and now you’re talking behind my back. Great,” Adam snapped, irritably. He balled his fist in his lap, letting his nails cut into his palms.

“Fighting your battles?” Gansey’s lips parted in disbelief. “Wait, you’re upset with me because I stood up for you!? Seriously?”

“I was handling it.”

“You were shaking like a leaf by the paint cans, waiting for him to raise his hand. Oh yes, it definitely looked like you had the situation handled.”

“ _ Gansey as in Senator Gansey who just won the Virginia seat in Congress. _ ” Adam mocked Gansey from earlier. “Jesus Christ, you're so fucking condescending sometimes, whipping out your privilege like you own me or something. Why didn't you just whip out your dick too while you were at it? You could have compared who was bigger, yours or his.”

“You were in trouble, and I was trying to help. What’s the problem with that?”

Adam’s nails cut painful into the white flesh of his palm, and he forced himself to take in a breath. “I don't need you coming to my rescue. I’m not a precious snowflake in need of protecting all the time. And next time, how about instead of tiptoeing behind my back, you and Henry, could actually talk to me face to face? ”

“As if that was true.” Gansey huffed.

“Excuse me?”

“Because the moment that I try to talk to you, you immediately shut down.” Gansey reached up and smoothed the wrinkle from his brow and sighed, a clear attempt at reining in his own emotions. “A part of me understands, and the other part needs a clue because it feels like I’m wading in the dark here. I need you to talk to me, Adam. How is this--” He gestured between the two of them. “--supposed to work if you’re pushing me away, if you won’t let me into that brain of yours?”

His fist had slowly released. A year ago, Adam would have lost his temper, would be living in crippling fear that he would have shouted or swung out and hit something. Now, he seriously considered whether some part of him was unintentionally shutting windows and drawing down the blinds between them.

Adam stared down at his hands. “You couldn’t possibly begin to understand the inner workings of my mind.”

“So, help me understand,” Gansey said quietly, letting his hand slide into Adam’s. Adam watched as each finger slowly wrapped around his own until their palms cupped together. Adam leaned his head into Gansey’s shoulder, pressing his face into his neck, and Gansey’s other hand slipped into his hair.

“I’m broken,” Adam admitted. For a while, it was the two of them sitting in silence. And Adam thought maybe he never said that part aloud, but that he had only thought it.

“Eventually broken things do get fixed.”

It took a moment, but a genuine laugh bubbled out of Adam’s lips, and his shoulders shook so hard that Gansey pulled away slightly, his hands still tangled in Adam’s hair, and stared at him as if he had lost his mind. 

“I don’t understand what is so funny,” Gansey said, waiting for Adam’s laughter to cease. 

“I’m sorry. That was just the most cliche thing that I’ve ever heard.” 

Gansey’s face grew flushed with scarlet, smiling sheepishly.

“I was consoling you.”

“I know.” Adam burst into more laughter. “It just wasn't good. Or maybe it was because it made me laugh.”

“Well, laughter is good, even if it is at my expense. Adam, listen, I know it means a lot for you to be able to stand on your own two feet. When I saw you and your father, I just wanted to help. I’m sorry if it crossed the line.”

“I’m sorry too. I was in a shit mood, and I took it out on you.”

“We’re even.”

“Yeah.” 

And despite how shitty and emotionally exhausted he felt, Gansey was staring at him in a way that made Adam’s heart stop beating, as if Adam was such stuff as dreams were made on, as if there was moonbeam in his skin and starlight in his eyes and magic dust sprinkled in his hair. The hazel in Gansey’s eyes was compassion, and his lips curved into a soft crescent bow. Adam’s insides spilled over like quiet dawn creeping into a dark room with mistings of sunlight.

What was love? He thought. He didn't have the words for it. He never had a father to talk to him about it or a mother to shower him with it. And all the books that he had read were cold and clinical things. For twenty years, he had been denied it like a feral child who had been shut away from all human contact. He had never known love or what it meant to fall in love with another person. But he knew sitting in the quiet churchyard with Gansey was the closest thing Adam had ever felt to falling in love.

“Gansey, I--”

“You guys will never believe this! Not in a thousand years!” Henry ran up the path to the church, cheesing from ear to ear. Gansey quickly disentangled himself from Adam. A bit of Adam’s waning irritation returned at Henry cockblocking his perfect moment. “We have to go to this pizza joint by the name of Nino’s.”

“Why?” Gansey asked. 

“There is no time for questions. Just get in the car and drive!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you peeps enjoyed the chapter. Please leave a comment. Let me know what you thought, what you liked, what you disliked, or what you found interesting. Don't forget to kudos, bookmark, and subscribe for future updates! Also, come find me on tumblr as Rarity-Kasket!!! We can gab about Adansey and TRC! Until we meet again!
> 
> xoxo, Kasket


	5. The Astronomical Improbability

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Peep, I know it's only Tuesday. But I'm back with another update! I received some great news today, so I thought I would post because I felt so happy. Anyways, this chapter was really fun to write. I love me a scene with a lot of cute bantering in it. Enjoy!

“Hey, guys! Over here!”

When they entered Nino’s, Adam was shocked to find Noah standing in one of the cracked vinyl booths, waving them over and beaming so brightly that even the sun, on the loveliest day of summer, would have envied him. When one of the waitresses had yelled at him to get down, Noah gleefully jumped from the booth and hug tackled the nearest person, which happened to be Adam.

“How crazy is this?” Noah exclaimed, shaking with excitement. 

“Ronan?” Gansey asked.

Adam’s head snapped to Gansey, whose gaze was trained on the person sitting in the booth behind Noah. Gansey appeared as if he was staring at a ghost.

Adam’s eyes drank in every inch of the stranger at the table. He analyzed every detail of Ronan, from his shaved head to his tight fitted leather jacket. His cold eyes had an intensity that could set a person ablaze, and his sharp mouth curled into an awful sneer. Everything about this guy was sharp angles, threatening to cut if one got too close.

When Gansey mentioned that he spent most of his days with a surly farmer, this image of Ronan did not come to mind. His boyfriend had spent all summer with  _ this  _ guy. Adam swallowed. Ronan was devastatingly handsome. His eyes flickered from Ronan’s face to his expensive leather jacket. Adam could only buy something that expensive in his dreams. It was obvious that Gansey and he were more suited for each other and made much more sense than Gansey and he. 

“Wait, Ronan? Like your imaginary farmer friend with the pet raven?” Henry had asked what Adam had been thinking. 

“Do I look like a fucking imaginary friend?” Ronan asked, leaning back against the booth. Everything about him looked so...impressive. Adam glanced down at the washed-out and fraying jeans he had decided to wear today.

Noah looked back and forth between Ronan and Gansey as if watching a riveting ping-pong match. “You two know each other? This is crazy!”

“Gansey is the person I was meeting afterward. The guy from this summer.”  Ronan told him, and Noah’s mouth fell open.

“Oh, this makes so much sense now. You’re both of the Glendower guys. I thought it was a coincidence that you were looking for Glendower and Ronan’s friend was also looking for Glendower--” 

“That is too much of a coincidence,” Adam said.

“This is so bizarre.” Noah laughed. “What are the odds that Gansey and Ronan meet the summer that I go to Amsterdam, then Gansey turns out to be both of the Glendower guys, and because of that, we’re all here in Henrietta together on this very day?”

“Astronomically impossible,” replied Henry. “Like this moment is mathematically impossible. Coincidences like these only happen in poorly written books.” 

Noah looked over at Henry, and his smile grew wider than it was when he had first spotted them walking through the door. 

“Geez, I’m just so happy that all of you are actually here.” 

Adam didn't miss how Noah had only looked at Henry when he said this. Based on the way Henry’s breath caught next to him, neither did he. Neither did Ronan, whose eyes narrowed like a snake as though he saw straight through Henry’s salacious intentions like a father meeting his little girl’s boyfriend for the first time.

“Alright Noah, you can sit your happy ass down now,” Ronan said. Noah hopped back to the booth and slid across from Ronan. Henry followed him so that Noah and he were sitting next to each other. Gansey and Adam took the booth with Ronan.

“Is it true that you own a bird?” Henry asked.

“I don't know what you’re talking about. I don’t own a bird. Chainsaw is fucking family.”

“Chainsaw?” Adam asked.

“Chainsaw is the raven,” Gansey explained.

“Lovely name,” Henry said. 

“Fuck you,” Ronan replied.

“You swear a lot for a farmer.”

Gansey cleared his throat. “Ronan, these are my friends, Adam Parrish and Henry Cheng.” 

Ronan’s eyes slid over to Adam, running down his body like a lion assessing its prey before the moment of attack. Adam held his eye contact. He refused to be intimidated by Ronan Lynch. Something within him, whether he liked it or not, wanted to impress him.

“Your friends are nerds.” Ronan sneered.

“Don't you think that’s rather hypocritical considering you spent your whole summer searching for a dead Welsh King?” Adam fired back at him. “You’re not fooling anyone in that leather jacket.”

The comment took everyone by surprise. Henry’s mouth fell open, Noah howled with laughter, and Gansey raised an eyebrow. Ronan even had the decency to look floored as if he couldn't believe a scrawny loser in busted jeans and sneakers could bite back. He composed himself quickly, growling as he bit down and tore at the leather bracelets on his wrist.

“Hey Parrish, call the fire department first before you go around burning people.”

“Need some ice for that sick burn, Ronan?” Noah grinned. 

“Shut the fuck up, Noah. You’re not funny.” Ronan snapped. Noah looked completely unaffected by his rude behavior.

“I’m hilarious.”

“How do you two know each other?” Gansey asked. Looking between Noah and Ronan, they were day and night. Ronan was sharp lines and spitting fire, while Noah was playful bubbles and affectionate hugs. They seemed like two extremes on either end, and Adam was curious about where they overlapped in the middle. 

“Ronan and I went to high school together. There’s a private school here called--"

“Aglionby Academy.” Adam finished for him. “You’re a raven boy?” he asked, surprised that Noah had gone to Aglionby. How could he have not known that or the fact that Noah lived in Henrietta too? Adam felt dumbfounded that he never picked up on these pieces of knowledge. What else did he not know about Noah? His roommate could have been a damn ghost this entire time, and he would have never known. Ronan, on the other hand, seemed like he would have been a shoe-in with the arrogant, mischievous boys who attended the school. Adam had more difficulty placing Noah there as one of those self-absorbed and pretentious raven boys. 

“You know what a raven boy is?” Noah asked.

“What is up with this town and ravens?” Henry interjected. 

“Yeah… I use to live in Henrietta.”

“Cut it out!” Noah slammed the table in excitement. “No way! Where have you been all my life? Are you telling me that we lived in the same town, and we never met until college?”

“The astronomical improbability of this situation is getting ridiculously high,” Henry said. “Like fanfiction level high. Like this is stretching my suspension of disbelief.”

Noah turned to Ronan. “Adam’s my roommate at Yale.”

Ronan’s eyes roved over all of them. “You all go to Yale? Including him?” He pointed at Henry. 

“Especially me.” Henry winked.

“Jesus fucking Christ, fuck me with a chainsaw,” Ronan swore. Gansey scrunched up his face like a disapproving parent.

“The mental image was not needed, Ronan.” Gansey grimaced.

“It’s never too late for secondary education. Join us!” Noah nudged Ronan’s arm.

“I would rather hang myself a fucking tie than walk around your fancy campus wearing one.”

“Don’t worry. We’re not prejudiced against people who don't wear ties.” Adam replied wryly.

A waitress walked by their table, jotting down their order. When she left, Noah immediately hijacked the conversation. 

“I recognized the gnomes from Henry's Snapchat, and I called as soon as I opened it. Henry said you guys were searching the old churchyard,” Noah said, and Gansey nodded an affirmation. 

“Adam thought of the brilliant idea of combing through the Gazette archive for places of interests. The churchyard was a frequent hit.”

“That place gives me the heebie-jeebies.” Noah shuddered. “I never go near there.”

“So what did you find?” Ronan asked. 

“We didn’t find much evidence. But we’ll definitely come back to it. I have an inkling about the place. We’re doing more exploring afterward.” Through Gansey didn’t explicitly say it, there was an undeniable understanding that Ronan and Noah would be joining them on their afternoon adventure. The conversation had moved on from the churchyard. Adam’s gaze traveled from face to face. To Ronan with his sharp mouth and jagged angles and piercing eyes that cut Adam like a cavernous gash. To Noah whose eyes were affectionate and wild and electric like shooting stars. To Henry’s suave grin that held behind it resilience and mystery and a profound hope. And in a series of strange events, one by one they had found their way to the most peculiar and extraordinary person roaming the planet. To the boy running full speed towards the end of the earth for the smallest chance that magic may exist in this world.

“Hey Gansey, did Adam sing you my song yet? I worked super hard on it. And it’s all about you.”

Gansey’s brows rose in the air, alarmed. “What song?” 

Adam rubbed his hand over his hot neck. “Noah is just kidding.”

“No, I’m not. Here, I’ll sing it for you! GANSEY--" Noah started to sing loudly, and Adam swung his foot under the table and kicked Noah. “Ouch!” Noah swore as he leaned down to rub the pain out of his shin. “Whoever kicked me, watched your feet.” Noah glared at Ronan.

“Why the fuck are you looking at me?” Ronan asked. The corner of Adam’s mouth curled slightly.

The universe had smiled down favorably on Adam because their waitress returned with food, and hunger made their curiosities disappear. The boys were ravenous vultures grabbing for the first slice of pizza they could get their hands on and shove into their mouths. 

“Are you not going to eat?”Gansey asked Noah, who had hardly made a move for the pizza. Instead, he was making a plethora of origami ravens out of the napkins with an intense concentration. Noah didn’t look up from his work.

“I’m not really hungry,” Noah told them. His fingers moved in a blur. It made Adam dizzy to watch.

“You should probably eat something. When’s the last time that you ate?” Henry asked, looking down at Noah’s clean and empty plate. Noah looked up at Henry, but his hands were still moving around the raven.

“I’m fine. I’m just really excited that we’re all here together and about these paper ravens.” Noah lifted one of the finished ravens to show everyone. It was nicely made.

Henry opened his mouth to protest, but Ronan snapped. “He doesn’t have to eat pizza because you told him to. What are you? His mother?” 

The comment left Henry unaffected.

“Nope, but Noah and I happen to be  _ very  _ close at Yale. We’re like best friends.” Henry gave a flamboyant stretch of his arms before draping one over Noah’s shoulder and smirking. Ronan’s gaze snapped to Henry’s hand, glowering at it. Noah paused in his napkin folding.

“Sorry Henry, we’re close and all, but I tend to take my friendships very seriously. There can only be  _ one _ best friend. Ronan’s my number one. My ride or die. My wing-man. The PB to my J. The Scully to my Mulder. The wind beneath my wings. The--”

Ronan ripped off a slice of pizza from the tray and shoved it into Noah’s mouth to make him stop talking. Noah, who almost choked on it, pulled the slice out of his mouth. 

“Was that necessary? He almost choked,” Gansey asked, disapprovingly.

“It’s okay, Gansey. Ronan just doesn’t want the world to know how special our love is. The world can never know, but we will.” Noah winked at Ronan before peeling off the top layer of cheese.

“Shut up and eat your pizza,” Ronan grumbled.

“If I can’t be the Scully to your Mulder, then who can I be?” Henry asked Noah. There was a hopeful glimmer in his eyes as he stared at Noah, who conveniently took a bite out of the crust.

“You can be no one,” Ronan told him.

“Ronan, be nice.” Gansey chided.

“I was being nice. I could have told him to go fuck himself.”

The table fell back into some semblance of order as they discussed their afternoon adventure. Ronan and Noah would drop Ronan’s car off at Monmouth before they all crammed into the same car together and explored another place of interest. Gansey offered to foot the entire bill. Noah and Ronan had stepped outside while Adam and Henry stayed behind with Gansey. Adam pulled out his wallet, and Gansey shook his head as soon as it appeared into view.

“Adam Parrish, you put that wallet away.” Gansey reached over to grab his wallet, but Adam, whose arms were lankier, quickly pulled it out of reach.

“You’re paying for pizza for five people. At least let me pay you for my portion.”

Henry, who had heard this conversation way too many times to count and was over it, asked, “Don’t you two ever get tired of this argument?”

They both turned to him, and without any preemptive knowledge of what the other would do, shouted “No,” at the same time.

Henry stood from the table and rolled his eyes.

“I’m waiting by the car,” he announced. “Hopefully you’ll come to a compromise sometime before Christmas is over.” Henry stalked away.

“There is no logic in paying for your portion of the pizza if no one else is,” Gansey argued.

“Okay then, let me go half with you,” Adam suggested, and Gansey appeared horrified by the suggestion. Adam huffed. “Why do you insist on paying for stuff for me all the time?”

“Why do you insist on having to owe me for things all the time? I agree with Henry. Could we not have this argument today?” 

“No, we’re having this argument.”

“You can have it. I’m not.” Gansey glanced around the pizza parlor before he leaned in and stole a kiss from Adam, who pulled back and gave a look that said,  _ What the hell, we’re supposed to be arguing?  _

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m seducing you.” Gansey saddled in closer. He stole another kiss on Adam’s mouth, lingering this time. Gansey’s lips dragged down his jaw, leaving open mouth kisses in his trail. Adam rolled his eyes and pulled away.

“You’re distracting me so we don't have this argument.”

“I’m trying to woo you.” 

“You can woo me by letting me at least leave the tip money.”

“You’re insufferable.” 

“So that is a yes then? Either way, I’m leaving money on this table, so you should say yes.” Adam asked, not waiting for Gansey to agree before putting down a hefty tip on the table. Gansey counted the money.

“This is half the cost of the pizza.” Gansey narrowed his eyes at Adam, who blinked back at Gansey with a feigned innocence.

“I thought she did an exceptional job.”

There was a knock on the window, both Gansey and Adam turned to find Henry outside tapping his finger to his wrist as if to say, _ I don’t care who wins this argument, someone cave already!  _

“Fine,” Gansey said before laying out money for the bill amid the dozens of tiny ravens that Noah had folded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment down below and let me know what you think! Until we meet again, xoxo, Kasket


	6. There is a Light that Never Goes Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Peeps, I'm back with an update! I have to admit that I hated writing this chapter. Writing dance scenes are the devil. It gave me the worst trouble, and I stopped writing for a while because I dreaded this scene. That being said, this is also my FAVORITE chapter. I had one of those magic writing moments while writing this. I was writing this chapter when a song came on the radio, and suddenly everything clicked. I knew where this chapter needed I go. I am so proud how this chapter came out. Anyways, I hope that you enjoy, and don't forget to leave a comment.

It was dark when Adam woke up, and the only source of light that he could make out was pale moonlight spilling into the room casting the objects in a twinkling silver glimmer. Groaning, Adam rolled over, surprised when his arm slapped against the empty mattress. He blinked a few times, not trusting his senses which were layered in a groggy haze. When he reached out to touch the spot again, it was cold, and Adam knew that Gansey had been out of bed for quite some time. Adam forced himself into sitting position.

“You’re up.” 

Adam recognized Gansey’s voice and craned his neck around the room to find him. He was laying on his belly with a paintbrush and a small box in his hand, almost hidden behind a pile of books next to a floor lamp.

“What are you doing?” Adam cleared his throat. His own voice sounded tired. They had spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Henrietta and other surrounding places with Ronan. The information they did collect was useful, but nothing that Adam would consider the breakthrough that Gansey had been hoping for. When it had gotten too dark for them to continue, they returned back to Monmouth, and Noah and Ronan had stuck around for a little while longer until it had grown too late. Henry took one of the rooms upstairs, and Adam stayed downstairs with Gansey.

“I’m working on my replica. I couldn't sleep.”

It wasn't a surprise to find Gansey like this. Adam knew of his bouts of insomnia. He had witnessed it on the few occasions that he stayed over in Henry and Gansey’s dorm.

“You should go back to sleep,” Gansey gently urged.

“Mmh, can’t.” Adam crawled out of the bed and ambled over to Gansey, through the miniature main street of Henrietta. He sat with his legs criss-crossed next to Gansey and pulled his sweatshirt, which had Yale stenciled on the front in bold lettering, down over his boxer shorts. Adam’s eyes flickered down to Gansey’s shoulders. In the soft lighting, he could make out Gansey’s defined back muscles under his white t-shirt. A potent desire overcame him to stroke his fingers down the dip of Gansey’s back where shoulder blades met. He inhaled sharply and forced his eyes away, but Gansey was all skin and Adam wanted to put his mouth everywhere. His spine. His shoulders. The busy and paint-coated tips of his fingers. The patch of skin stretching above his hip where his shirt rode up. Adam wanted to crawl underneath him, drape himself in Gansey, and let his mouth suck on the flat bone of Gansey’s sternum until it was red and raw like cutting into a ripe pomegranate. 

“You’re not cold?” 

“Not really.” Gansey hummed. “Are you cold?”

“Just a little.” Adam shrugged his shoulders and pulled his sleeves over his hands. Gansey glanced up from the miniature church he was painting, his eyes moving from Adam to the bed before he stood up, wiped his fingers down with a nearby rag, and grabbed the blanket from the bed. He draped the thick blanket over Adam’s shoulders, hands lingering on them before taking a seat back on the floor. 

“Thanks,” Adam said, pulling the blanket across his chest. Gansey went back to painting, dripping his brush into the paint before coloring the church in small and precise strokes.“You didn't have to do that,” Adam said, quietly.

“Well, it’s just a blanket. And you were cold.”

Adam shifted, pulling his legs up and letting his chin rest on the top of his knees. A prolonged silence engulfed them, and Adam watched as Gansey’s hands quietly worked on the miniature replica of some church in Henrietta, amazed by the accuracy of his work. His eyes traveled to Main street, and Adam recognized the old general stores and small cafes that lined the streets. A little further out Adam found the old factory that he use to work at. There was even a small replica of Aglionby Academy. Adam stood, pulling the blanket tightly around him and approached closer to get a better look at it. Like the church Gansey worked on, Aglionby Academy had been crafted with a disturbing precision. It looked like the real thing. Years ago, Adam would have killed to be there. He would have willingly sold his soul just to be at that school. Look at him now. He had made it regardless. He was on his way to becoming someone, and he had done that all on his own.

“I still can’t believe that Noah was a raven boy,” Adam said, shaking his head in mild disbelief. 

“What’s the big deal about being a raven boy?”

“Most people in this town stay away from raven boys. They’re either trouble or entitled bastards or both.”

“I probably would have fit right in then.” Gansey smiled. 

“You probably would have been the teacher’s pet and the class president.” Adam smiled back. Gansey scrunched his face up in displeasure.

“Teacher’s pet, maybe. Class president isn’t my modus operandi.” 

“Well, you certainly have a class president look about you. Everyone in your family looks like they were born shaking hands and kissing babies. You could be the next Kennedy dynasty of you wanted.”

Gansey’s hands had stopped working. Even in the pale light, Adam saw his face grow pensive for a long moment before the muscles in his face relaxed, and he shook his head. 

“What?” Adam asked.

“Nothing.”

“I don’t believe you.” 

“It’s just…” Gansey sighed, rubbing his thumb over his bottom lip. “When we were exploring, the five of us, there still felt like something missing. I just feel it.”

“What’s the rush?” 

Gansey’s thumb paused over his lip as his eyes flickered up at Adam. “What do you mean?”

“You seem to be in a rush to find Glendower. More than usual.”

Gansey’s gaze flickered away before he picked up the church and started working on it again. “There's no rush. I just…” He paused, carefully weighing the words before speaking them. “I’m on the edge of that tipping point where everything is about to change. I know I’m there, and Glendower is just a breath away.” 

Though Adam had accepted the answer, he felt as though there was something critical he didn't quite get.

“We have all day today. Who knows what we’ll find then?” Adam gently reminded before a thought came to him. “Maybe we should go back to the psychics and get more clarity on the situation. It wouldn't hurt.”

“That’s not a bad idea. However, I doubt they might have a last minute opening tomorrow. We’ll stick with tomorrow’s plan and save the psychic visit for after Christmas. I wish I could just stay here all break.”

Adam didn't understand Gansey’s affection for Henrietta, nor did he pretended to understand.

“We’ll be back in no time. You just have to survive the Gala and Christmas.”

Whatever Adam said, it must have been a wake-up call for Gansey because he sat up, put the miniature church down, and dunked his brush in a teacup filled with water before he stood. 

“What did I say?” Adam asked.

“The Gala is in three days.” Gansey expression grew worried. 

“I know. So?”

“So. We only have three days to teach you how to properly waltz.”

Damn. 

He had hoped that Gansey had forgotten about the waltzing and would let him skate by without a lesson.

He was so close.

Gansey crossed over to him before he took his hand and dragged Adam to a large patch of empty space where little Henrietta hadn’t taken over yet.

“Do you know how late it is?” Adam asked, squinting at the alarm clock on Gansey’s desk. “Don’t you think it’s a little too late at night to be having dance lessons?”

“Neither of us appears to be retiring to bed soon, so it’s probably the perfect time.”

“I’m going back to bed.” Adam started to make his way toward the bed, but Gansey caught him by the arm and pulled him close, much to Adam’s reluctance. “I’m a terrible dancer.”

“I doubt that. You’re so proficient at everything, and the steps are simple. You’ll learn quickly.”

“You are severely underestimating my lack of coordination,” Adam replied but didn't put up a fight when Gansey put his hands on his hips, drawing him closer. The left half of Adam’s body pressed into Gansey’s like a puzzle sliding into a slot. Gansey took his hands off his hips, placing one on top of his bicep and taking Adam’s hands in his other before holding their joint palms out to the side. Gansey had told him to put his free hand on his shoulder blade, and Adam did as he was instructed to do. The position was stiff, and Adam felt silly doing it. He wished he had never crawled out of the bed in the first place.

“This is the natural waltz position. So for this scenario. You’ll do the male steps as those are the steps you’ll actually perform. This means that you’ll be leading the dance. I’ll perform the traditional female role and follow. Your hand goes on the female’s shoulder blade, and you stand a little to her left, so that way your knees don’t bump into each other. Does that make sense?”

Adam nodded. The instructions seemed simple so far.

“The first move I will teach is the box step. It’s the most basic step in the waltz. You’ll step on the left--" Gansey looked at him expectedly. Adam, who caught on quickly, glanced down at his feet and took a step forward on the left. Gansey countered by stepping back on his right foot. “You’ll step to the side on the free foot.” Both Gansey and he shifted to the side together. “Then you close your left foot to your right foot.” Adam slid his foot in for the two to meet together. “We have created only half of the box, so we have to finish it. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” Adam, who had been watching his feet the entire time, glanced up and nodded. Gansey talked him slowly through the second half of the box. He stepped back on the right, out to the side, and then pulled his feet back together. When they had finished the first walkthrough, Gansey’s eyes sparkled as he gave Adam a proud smile, and he couldn't help his own smile that had begun to grow. That was easy enough.  _ Maybe this wouldn’t be a complete disaster after all.  _

Thirty minutes later, it was a complete disaster.

In his mind, he understood it all. Downbeat was always on one. Keep chest and arms lifted. Rotate counterclockwise. Forward. Side. Together. Back. Side. Together. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. Down. Up. Up. Down. Up. Up. Though his mind understood all of this perfectly, his body struggled to catch up and was always three steps behind. Gansey was extremely patient with him. Every time he stumbled, fell behind on counts, or stepped on Gansey’s foot, they would take a small, simple pause and start over.

“You have to keep your gaze up,” Gansey eventually told him, pulling back from Adam. “You keep staring at the ground, and it’s throwing off your posture.”

“Then how else am I supposed to know that I am doing it right? I have 48 hours to figure this out.” Adam said irritably; his face had grown flushed. 

“You’re too self-conscious. Stop thinking too much.”

“Easier said than done.” 

Gansey’s lips pressed into a thin line as he stared out the window, deep into thought, before an idea came to him. He strode back to his desk and rummaged in his drawers for something. It was difficult to see what Gansey was doing with his back turned to Adam.

Adam moved to follow him but froze when music slashed through the silence. He didn't recognize the song. It was modern too, nothing ritzy and pretentious like Adam would expect waltz music to be.  This was the music you played when you were driving in the dead of night on an empty road with all the windows rolled down as the sound screamed cathartically into the darkness. The music was alive and wild and hungry, pulsating with a maddening delirium.

“We not waltzing to this, are we?” Adam asked over the music as Gansey crossed back to him, took his hand and led him towards the window where moonlight shone and drenched them both with its silver shimmer.

“No. Let’s just move together. So no box steps. No rise and fall. Just you and me.” 

Adam stared at Gansey’s hand with a generous mix of apprehension and terror. Dear god, freestyle was worst. Give him steps or counts or anything. Just don’t make him freestyle. 

“It’s going to help. I promise.” Gansey said. He must have seen his panic-stricken expression. 

“How?”

“You have to trust me. I want you to close your eyes.”

Despite his reluctance, Adam listened to Gansey’s instruction, letting his eyes fall shut. Gansey had taken his other hand, and their fingers slowly weaved together. The dance, whatever this was, had begun. He felt Gansey gently tug on his arm, leading and pulling and spinning him this way and that way. Adam was a lifeless doll in Gansey’s arms. He didn’t know what to do with his hands or his feet. They moved together in a slow and awkward shuffle. He was glad that Gansey had asked him to close his eyes. Now he wouldn’t know if he looked as stupid as he felt. Adam didn’t understand how this related to the waltzing except for the fact that both activities were torturing him.

“Stop overthinking,” Gansey said. Adam held back a snippy remark and squeezed his eyes tight, letting his mind clear. Instead, he focused on Gansey’s hands, how heavy and warm and smooth they were on his own calloused hands. Their skin created light friction as Gansey’s finger slid out of his, and Gansey was no longer holding his hands, but they were on Adam’s hips as he drew closer.

And it was taking Adam to a strange place. A place where there was the sound of summer in a desolate winter, and there were only words cherry-picked from the mouth of a poet. Something wild and insatiable gripped him, and the pulse of the music slipped into his veins, and it was like waking up from a long slumber.

_ Take me out tonight  _

_ Take me anywhere, I don't care _

_ I don't care, I don't care _

_ And in the darkened underpass _

_ I thought oh God, my chance has come at last _

_ But then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask _

Adam opened his eyes. Gansey watched him with a twinkling warm and amused gaze as if to ask, d o you get it now?

Adam’s hands slid across the tops of his shoulders, pressing closer.

Yeah, I get it, Adam thought.

Adam felt every shift in Gansey’s body, and they were connected in a way that, like planets in orbit, when one body moved in space, the other followed. They were liquid, molding into the shape of each other. They were hips and skin and silver moonlight and exposed, fraying wires sparking at the ends. 

_ Take me out tonight _

_ Oh take me anywhere, I don't care _

_ I don't care, I don't care _

_ Driving in your car _

_ I never never want to go home _

_ Because I haven't got one, oh, I haven't got one _

Adam didn’t know who started it first, him or Gansey, and in a way, it didn’t matter who started the spin. They whipped across the floor, one turn after another, as fast as they could until the world melted into a blur, and they were tripping over each other. The outro faded into nothing, and they were breathless and dizzy and spilling with laughter.

_ There is a light and it never goes out... _

_ There is a light and it never goes out... _

_ There is a light and it never goes out... _

Long after the last lingering chord, they swayed to silence, partly to sooth the dizziness and partly because they didn’t want it to end. For a while, it was just Gansey and him moving in the moonlight and the silence until Adam realized that they had fallen back into a waltz pattern. It was sloppy and their knees touched a few times and it had none of the polished decorum that a waltz should possess, but neither of them seemed to care.

Their swaying faded to a quiet stop because all things that are good and pure and beautiful in this world must eventually come to an end. Gansey tilted his head toward Adam, and they were staring at each other. Too afraid to speak because there were no words to speak, because some moments were too precious for words and anything spoken afterward seemed fruitless and frivolous, because if words were spoken, then the spell would break. 

Adam’s arms lifted off of Gansey’s shoulder, bringing his hands up to cup Gansey’s face. His thumb swept across his cheek, traced the lines of his face, and touched the softness of his lips. He felt Gansey inhale against his thumb before pressing a kiss there. Gansey’s mouth dragged across his hand, kissing his palm, his knuckles, the web of skin between fingers, and the tips of fingers. Gansey brought Adam’s wrist to his lips, placing a kiss there. There was something so reverent and ceremonial in the action like when the people of the old world laid offerings before their pagan gods. Adam brought their mouths together, and Gansey’s mouth fell open like the first bud of spring. 

They stumbled to the bed, careful not to kick over Henrietta. As they laid on the bed together, peeling off layers of clothes, it was both familiar and foreign to them. They had had sex before. It was usually ravenous, desperate, and feverish. It was whenever and wherever roommates weren’t in the way. It reeked of young, horny college-aged boys. 

Tonight, they touched with muted passion. They savored each kiss like the last raindrop before a drought. Their bodies moved slowly, taking all the time needed to learn each other. Sometimes, Adam would pull away just to admire Gansey’s body because he wanted to memorize ever dip and curve of him. He would map out all the places on Gansey’s body he hadn’t kissed yet, swearing one day he would visit them. 

When Adam’s gaze would lift to Gansey’s face, Gansey, who was breathless and flushed all over, would smile at him amusingly before he pulled Adam close. He let Gansey’s fingers tangle in his hair. He let Gansey kiss him and taste him and savor him. He let Gansey draw sweet, quiet moan from him with his hands and his mouth until Adam had lost himself in an ocean of pleasure once more.  

It wasn’t until long after they had both come and Adam was laying on top of Gansey’s chest that he realized that this was the first time they had made love.

Time felt fleeting and yet infinite. Though Adam knew that this moment of them would soon fade to memory, he was reminded that time was a never-ending circle. On some other plane of time, there was a version of Gansey and himself who had already made love for the very first time, and a version of themselves who had yet to experience anything like this. And in a strange, paradoxical way, after this moment died, it would continue to live.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song featured in this chapter and the song that inspired writing magic when I was in a slump is: There is a Light that Never Goes Out by the Smiths. I highly recommend listening to it. It's the perfect Adansey song.
> 
> Anyways, please leave a comment. I would love to know what you all think. Until next time, xoxo, Kasket


	7. Time is Running Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Peeps! We're at the second to last chapter of that story. It's hard to believe. Anyways, I'm posting today because I have a lot of real world/Adulting stuff that I need to focus on tomorrow. Enjoy chapter seven!

Henrietta couldn’t last forever, and with the Christmas Gala quickly approaching, Henry, Gansey, and Adam were forced to return to Washington DC. Both Noah and Ronan stayed over at Monmouth their last evening in Henrietta just to send them off the next day. Ronan left earlier in the morning while Noah stayed behind, something about feeding his cows. When Henry made a clever Old Macdonald's joke, Ronan left Henry a sweet parting gift: two middle fingers tossed in his direction.

“I think he really likes me.” Henry grinned over his mug of coffee that morning.

Noah watched sadly as they packed their belongings in the car. When Henry put his duffle bag in the trunk, Noah took the bag out, held onto it, and wouldn’t let go when Henry tugged on it, which prompted a tickle fight that Adam and Gansey were forced to observe from the side of the car.

“We’re not this nauseatingly gross, are we?” Gansey whispered next to him.

“No.”

“Thank god.”

The tickle fight eventually fizzled out.

“It feels like you guys just got here. At least, stay one more day.” Noah said to them, breathless and flushed and still holding onto Henry bag.

“Can’t,” Gansey told him. “I promised my mother I would be back by lunchtime. There’s someone that she wants me to meet. But we’ll return in two weeks.”

Noah pouted, put Henry’s duffle back in the trunk with Gansey and Adam’s luggage, and shut the trunk. He turned to both Gansey and Adam, pulling them in for a fierce hug. 

“Maybe you could come visit us in DC,” Gansey suggested as he pulled back. “There is plenty of space at my parent’s house. Maybe you can drag Ronan along with you.”

“I don’t know about that, but I’ll see about making a trip to DC.” Noah snorted. He saved his last and longest embrace for Henry, who had never looked so in love before as Noah sprung up on the tips of his toes and wrapped his arms Henry’s neck. When they finally untangled from each other, Noah took a good look at Henry’s face and narrowed his eyes.

“Why are you wearing sunglasses? You’ve been wearing them all morning” Noah asked him.

“My skin doesn’t properly rejuvenation until nine-thirty.”

“That’s dumb.” Noah’s lips split into an affectionate grin, his eyes sparkling like firecrackers fizzing out in the sky. He pushed the glasses up and off Henry’s face, and his hand lingered on the glasses. He was wearing the smile from two days ago when he first spotted them at Nino’s, the one that could put the sun to shame. Gansey coughed softly.

“We should really be departing before the traffic gets congested it.”

Noah pulled his hand back and stuffed it into his pocket. 

They exchanged final goodbyes, and as they drove off, Henry glanced back in the window, watching Monmouth grow smaller and smaller by the second. Just like that, another friend of Adam was wrapped under Henrietta’s charm. Adam’s gaze went up to the rearview mirror.

“What the--” He watched the car behind them barrel forward on the wrong side of the two-lane road. “Is that--” 

A red mustang glided next to them. The driver blew a kiss, cackled before cutting in front of Gansey, and sped from sight like a bullet shooting out of the gun. It was the most raven boy thing Adam had ever seen Noah do.

“He’s going to get himself murdered if he keeps pulling stunts like that.” Gansey chided, shaking his head in disapproval.

Henry draped himself across the back of Adam’s seat and gave the road ahead of them a dreamy look.

“I’m going to marry that boy someday.”

So they returned and spent their two free days exploring the city,  prepping for the Gala, and Christmas shopping. The day they arrived back, Mrs. Gansey dragged her son to a luncheon with some prominent representative, and Adam used the free time to look for another Christmas gift for Gansey at the National Mall with Henry. Adam left the mall empty-handed, uncertain of what to give the boy who had everything. There were more private waltz lessons too. Adam wasn’t the most graceful (Henry had equated it to watching a baby gazelle walk for the first time ever before the inevitable crash to the ground), but over his brief lessons, Adam grew proficient enough that he could pass for a dance or two. 

The evening before Mrs. Gansey’s Gala, the whole family had gathered around the table for dinner. It happened to be one of those perfect evenings where neither Mr. Gansey and Mrs. Gansey were working late and both of their children were home for the holidays. They gathered around the table like the old tv families in _The_ _Brady Bunch_ or _The Andy Griffin Show_ , eating the grilled lemon rosemary salmon and butter squash quinoa that Margo had prepared.

Mr. Gansey and Mrs. Gansey seemed delighted to have Adam and Henry as guests for dinner and were eager to pepper them with questions. Mrs. Gansey shared election campaign stories while Mr. Gansey asked a lot of questions about Yale, marveling at all the changes that had taken place since he last walked the halls of the institution.

“Adam, Gansey tells us that you took an internship in New York City last summer.” Mr. Gansey said. Though Gansey shared his mother’s charm and looks, no one could deny that he was Richard Gansey II’s son. They both possessed an air of regality that commanded authority. Adam sat up a little straighter.

“I did. I interned at the ACLU in their Human Rights Program, more specifically I assisted on the civil liberties cases.”

Mr. Gansey scrunched his face up as if a wet dog walked into the room. 

“The ACLU’s is a little too liberal for my taste if you ask me.”

“A lot of their views aren’t necessarily conservative,” Adam said, treading lightly. “They address issues that I think people on either side of the political spectrum can get behind, such as criminal justice reform.”

Mr. Gansey nodded in agreement. “You’re right in that regard. Our justice system is broken, and it costs taxpayers more money each year to take care of these overflowing prisons. And it’s not like they get any better once they leave prison, these prisoners end up going back into the same hostile and poverty-stricken environments they were bred in. You should see the state of this these neighborhoods in DC. It’s no wonder people like them are dispositioned to commit crime.” 

“Richard!” Mrs. Gansey chastised, but Mr. Gansey merely shrugged her off as if this was a normal occurrence between the two.

“Do you consider yourself a liberal?” Mr. Gansey had posed the question to Adam casually, so why did Adam feel like he had just walked in front of a loaded gun? Adam chose his words with diplomatic care.

“I vote by the issues I feel are important to me, and not by the party I align with. So I guess in that respect, I would consider myself independent.” 

Mr. Gansey appraised Adam with an approving gaze and nodded. “I can respect someone who puts America first. What about you Henry?”

“I’m an environmental science major. With all due respect, I think that should sufficiently answer your question.” 

The table burst into riots of laughter at Henry’s sharp wit. When the laughter had faded, Mr. Gansey spoke again.

“Well, I don’t have to ask Dick on what side of the aisle he falls on. He knows where his allegiance lies.” 

Adam watched as Gansey brought his glass of pinot grigio to his lips and downed half of it with one gulp. Adam almost choked with laughter.

Towards the end of dinner, Mrs. Gansey had cleared her throat in a way that was meant to draw attention to her. Mrs. Gansey placed her utensils down. Her eyes were bright and energetic as if sitting on a secret that she could no longer hold.  “I’ve received excellent news today. Or should I say Gansey received excellent news today.” 

Gansey had looked up from his plate in mild surprise that told Adam he was just as clueless about the announcement as everyone else at the table. 

“I spoke with Representative Bradshaw from North Carolina. The one that we had lunch with the other day.” All eyes traveled to her, but she focused her attention on her son. “He is looking for an intern this summer. I’ve been suggesting you for a while now, and he was so charmed the other day that he agreed.” She paused at the end as if expecting applause. Both Mr. Gansey and Helen both looked pleased, but Gansey gave her blank stare.

“That’s amazing.” Mr. Gansey told his wife. “Think of all of the connections he’ll make on Capitol Hill. He would be surrounded by some of the world’s most powerful people.”

“But,” Gansey said. Mrs. Gansey’s smooth expression crinkled. Her eyes quickly flickered to both Henry and Adam as if she remember that this wasn’t a family exclusive affair. She smiled wider. “I’ve already agreed to intern for Dr. Copenhagen at the Natural History Museum in May and June. Then I’m spending the rest of the summer in Henrietta.” 

“Well, this is obviously more important. This is going to set your future. There’s a recess at the end of the summer, so you can do your little adventuring then.” His mother dismissed his excuse as easily as smoothening a wrinkle on a dress. 

“You’ve been palling around and playing Indiana Jones for a few years now.” Mr. Gansey added. “I have to agree with your mother on this one. It’s time to start getting serious. I’m sure you’ll learn a lot from Representative Bradshaw this summer. He’s an upstanding man.”

Like that, the conversation ended. Adam and Henry had watched as Gansey, a paragon of sovereignty, had been stripped of all power over the destiny he chose for himself. Gansey, himself, looked perfectly composed in his role as the dutiful son. Yet Adam imagined if he were to cut Gansey open wide, exposing the heart and veins and tendons, he would find a completely different boy dwelling inside. 

The dinner conversation plagued Adam all evening, but there was never a good time to discuss it with Gansey alone. Henry, Gansey, and he took the metro into DC where Henry ranted the entire ride about Representative Bradshaw’s questionable stance on climate change even as they got off the red line at Dupont Circle. They went to  _ Kramerbooks & Afterwords  _ for dessert _.  _ The bookstore had been where Gansey and Adam had their first date.

“In 2013, he called global warming the greatest hoax of the 21st century when evidence has shown that the main cause of man-made climate change is the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels. Honestly, the real hoax of the century is the slandering of the scientific community.” Henry huffed as he furiously chomped on his triple chocolate cake. “Also, according to this article, before he was elected as a representative, he collaborated on a bill in North Carolina that would have openly discriminated against LGBT members based on religious belief. Luckily, it didn’t get enough votes. And your dad called this man upstanding?”

“Please tell me that you’re not considering going through with this internship,” Adam said, watching Gansey shuffle pie from one side of the plate to the other side before he shrugged his shoulders dejectedly.

“What other choice do I have? I always knew this day would come.” Gansey said quietly. “I just thought maybe I would find Glendower before it happened.” 

The revelation came to Adam instantly. Gansey’s sudden restlessness and rush to find Glendower. He must have been expecting this moment to come. In a few months, they would be halfway through college, and two years after that, they would be preparing to enter the real world. They would be expected to start careers and eventually families because that was what being an adult meant,  _ supposedly _ . It left no room for adventure and imagination. Entering the real world, according to Gansey’s parents, meant leaving behind childish, whimsical fantasies and bearing the torch of responsibility. Gansey seemed to have his future mapped out for him, whether he wanted it or not, which left Adam wondering, where did he fit in?

“Hey, we’re not giving up on this,” Henry told him and laid his hand on top of Gansey’s forearm in a comforting gesture. “If that means that we only get a couple of weeks at the end of the summer to search for him, then we’ll use all the time we’re given. Glendower is out there waiting to be found, and I would have failed you as a friend if I had let you give up after you’ve sacrificed so much for this. If anyone is going to find Glendower, it has to be you Gansey, a prince among men.”

Gansey’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes as he said, “You’re a prince among men too, Henry.” 

He cut his fork into the apple pie before him, shuffling it across the plate. “Talk to me about something. Anything else.”

In a desperate effort to cheer Gansey up, Henry talked mindlessly about applying to study abroad in Venezuela junior year. A part of Adam knew that he should have said something inspirational to Gansey too, but he felt like he had stumbled upon a huge revelation about Gansey that refused to be ignored. His mind went back to his own encounter with his father a few days ago and other moments in the past. At every step, at every corner, Gansey had always been there for him...in a way that Gansey had never fully let Adam be there for him. In a weird way, things always revolved around fixing Adam. They were always talking about Adam’s issues, and Gansey’s were always non-existence or in hiding. Adam had given Gansey several chances to open up about what was bothering him. Each time, Gansey had craftily layered his excuses in his eagerness to find Glendower when the truth was: Gansey was running out of time.

In a strange twist of events, it was Gansey who had pulled down the windows and shut the blinds on him.

His revelation plagued him long after they had left the bookstore that evening. It followed Adam back to Gansey’s mansion late into the night and wore him down like a house guest who had overstayed their welcome. He was in the middle of looking at his textbook list for the upcoming semester when Gansey stopped by with a towel slung over his shirtless chest. Adam glanced up from his laptop to find Gansey in the doorway. 

“Can I come in?” he asked, hesitating in the doorway. 

“Sure,” Adam said. Gansey entered the room, closed the door behind him, and climbed into bed with Adam.

“Are you staying the night?” Adam asked.

“Do you want me to?”

Adam shrugged.

“You don't want me to spend the night?”

“I didn't say that,” Adam replied. He hardly spared a glance for Gansey as he dragged an abnormal psychology textbook into the shopping cart.

“But you’re not denying it.”

“I’m tired.” It wasn't a lie. Dinner and his sudden discovery had left him exhausted.

“Did I do something to upset you?” Gansey asked, trying to make eye contact with Adam, who avoided it with his laptop screen. Gansey snapped Adam’s laptop shut in frustration.

“I was in the middle of something,” Adam said. “You want to stay? Fine, you can stay. There, are you happy?”

“No. I’ve had a dreadful evening, and now on top of that, you’re being shitty for no apparent reason. I’m in the complete dark once again about what’s going through your brain.”  

“Then that makes two of us,” Adam shot back at Gansey accusingly. Gansey leaned away from him.

“What is that suppose to mean?” Gansey asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me what was really bothering you about not finding Glendower yet?”Adam finally asked. 

“What?”

“I asked you about it on two separate occasions. Once before your mother walked in on us, and twice when we were in Henrietta. I gave you two chances to be open with me. It seems hypocritical for you to ask that from me, and you won’t do the same. It’s like we’re always trying to fix me--”

“I’m not trying to fix you--”

“--because fixing me means that you don’t have to think about your own problems.”

“Yes, well, my father never bashed me in the head so hard that I lost all hearing in one ear. My issues seem to pale in comparison next to that.”

All of the color drained from Adam’s face.

“I didn't mean for it to come out that way--” Gansey backtracked. “That’s--"

“No, that’s exactly what you meant.” Adam cut him off. “God, Gansey, do you think that I’m sizing up tragedies? Is that it? Because I don't. I care about when you're upset and why, so why is it always about me and never about you for once?”

“Adam.” The weight of the world was in that one word. Adam felt the longing and misery and gentleness and frustration wrapped in that one word,  _ Adam.  _ He waited for Gansey to say something else. “You’ve been through so much. It unfair to put my burdens on you, when you've had a lifetime of them.” 

It felt like someone lit a fire inside of Adam. He wanted to tear his own hair out and throw his arms in the air just so Gansey could get the point. He drew in a breath and then released it.

“Gansey, for someone so clever, you’re a goddamn idiot sometimes. I don't care about any of that. You could complain until you're blue in the face about something as mundane as stepping in dog shit, and I would listen to every single word of it because--” Saliva slid down the back of his throat as he swallowed.The words had pushed their way unwillingly out of his mouth. “Because I love you.”

Adam’s tongue flicked out quickly to wet his chapped lips. The words were out there, and they were all his. There was nowhere to hide. A warm blush crept into Adam’s neck and his cheeks, but he held Gansey’s wide and searching gaze.

“I love you, and I know you don't feel the same, and I don't expect you to say it back--"

There was a knock on the door. Whoever was on the other side of the door had the  _ worst _ timing in the universe. Both Gansey and Adam’s gazes traveled to the door. Adam crossed over to the door and opened it. It was Helen. She stepped forward into the room, taking it in. Her eyes stopped on Gansey, sitting on Adam’s bed before her gaze ping-ponged from Adam to Gansey sitting on the bed and then back to Adam.

“Was I interrupting something?” 

_ Yes.  _

Frustration and impatience warred inside of him like two lightning bolts clashing together, but his face was a portrait painted in civil innocence.

“No, did you need something?” 

Helen’s eyes flickered back to Gansey. “I was looking for you, but you weren't in your room. Dad wanted to see you in his study.” 

“Now?”

‘Is that a problem?” She glanced back at Adam and away. 

“No. I’ll be there” He cleared his throat and stiffly climbed out of the bed. Adam watched his figure retreat down the hall until it disappeared.

Helen and Adam were left alone. She was staring at the spot Gansey had been with her lips pressed into a flat line. Adam’s pulse spiked.

“Is something wrong?” 

The flat line in her lips vanished, and Helen threw on a charming smile. “No, everything is great. You get some rest, Adam. We have a long day ahead of us.” She patted his shoulder, squeezing it gently before she left. She only got a few steps before paused and turned back to look at Adam. 

“You treat him well, right? He’s happy with you?” She asked. There was no point in skirting around what Helen meant. She puzzled it together. 

“I love him.” His heart lurched at how fierce the words came.

“Oh.” Helen made a face as if she didn't know what to do with the information she had unexpectedly been given. 

“How long have you've known?”

“For a while now. Dick might be good at concealing things from our parents, but I know my brother.” Her lips curved into a soft, knowing smile. “Keep him happy. I like you a lot, and I would hate for that to change.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave a comment or come chat with me on Tumblr! Until we meet again, xoxo, Kasket


	8. So This is Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, we're finally here! We're at the end of this project. I just wanted to give a special thanks to everyone who read, left a kudos, bookmarked, and commented. Your support has meant a lot. If you're on tumblr, look out on my account or Neberia's account for fanart that soon to come. Again, thank you to everyone who supported this fic I'll see you at the next one!

Getting Gansey alone long enough to talk proved to be a difficult feat. As they prepared for Mrs. Gansey’s big evening, there were always people hovering. All day, he felt Gansey’s heavy, questioning gaze on him everywhere he went. It drove Adam mad as he ran baseless theories through his head of what Gansey could possibly be feeling. They had made it all the way to the Christmas Gala without being alone together.

Mrs. Gansey had not exaggerated the beauty of the National Portrait Gallery's Great Hall. The hall was accentuated with nineteenth-century decor and long, towering columns. The vaulted ceilings soared above them all. At the entrance, there wasn’t just one, but two, curving staircases that lead to a beautiful, hand-laid encaustic tile floor. Everywhere, there were bodies draped in the finest wools and silks, swimming around each other and mingling.

Even at the Gala, getting Gansey alone was next to impossible thanks to Rep. Bradshaw. The man was so enamored by the Gansey charm that he lingered like a bad odor along with his wife and daughter. Gansey was forced to entertain them.

Like Helen and Mrs. Gansey predicted, Adam received many offers to dance and had politely turned all of them down. 

“You’re just a regular ol’ heartbreaker today,”  Henry said, sipping his wine. He stopped one of the waiters to grab a cocktail shrimp off a carrying tray before popping it into his mouth. Through the night, Adam and Henry floated around the ballroom making dull and trite conversation with several guests. Adam engaged in a rather boring conversation about a production of Oklahoma that this woman saw at the Ford's Theatre last week. She loved the musical ever since she was a little girl, but she was sitting close to the piano, and it was too loud in her hearing aid despite the fact that a wretched ticket office associate had told her that she would be seated a little further back. Not to mention that the seat cushions were too hard, and the man in front of her was too tall. She had to keep peeking around his massive head. While Adam listened patiently as she raved nonstop in his ear, Henry would interject with a practiced sympathy that only encouraged the old woman.

“I’m amazed at how clear your English is. You must have had amazing teachers in China. Not that I should be surprised, the Chinese are beating us in everything now. Of course, you have learned to master our language better than us.”

Both Henry and Adam hesitated before Henry corrected her, “I was born in America, and my mother is Korean.” 

“Well, it still doesn't change the fact that you people are beating us at everything.” The old woman dismissed airily.

Henry continued to smile, but the lines around his mouth grew tight. “If you’ll excuse us, I think there is a plate of crab-stuffed mushrooms floating around with our names on them.” Henry took Adam by the sleeve, dragging him far, far away on the other side of the ballroom. 

“The guests here are  _ just _ charming,” Henry remarked, grabbing two glasses of red wine off a tray floating by. He downed the first glass instantly. 

“How many glasses have you had already?”

“Not enough. I need to be wasted out of my wits. It’s the only way I’ll survive the night.”

“You would leave me to suffer on my own?” Adam asked, his eyes scanning the masses for a certain dark-haired boy, but the crowd was too thick.

“Gansey left us first,” Henry said, savoring his second glass. “I really hoped he wouldn't go through with Rep. Bradshaw’s internship.”

“You think he will?” 

“He hasn't left Bradshaw's side all night. I’m sure his parents have something to do with that.”

Adam’s head bobbed in agreement. Gansey’s father had probably summoned Gansey to his study last night to ask him to entertain Bradshaw and his family. 

“I told Gansey I love him.”

Henry lurched forward and spat his drink back in his glass as he choked on wine. Adam rubbed his shoulders until the furious coughing had subsided. 

“You did what?” Henry stared at Adam with a dazed expression. Adam blushed.

“I told him I was in love with him. I meant it.” 

A slow and tentative smile stretched across Henry’s lips before he let out a bark of laughter, “That’s great! That’s magnificent! My friends are in love. What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. We were interrupted by Helen, and today has been so busy that there hadn’t been a right time to talk to him about it,” Adam replied, and Henry’s smile slipped quickly from his face.

“Then what are you doing here talking to me?” Henry stared back at Adam as if he was an utter moron. “Go find him, and tell him again.”

“He’s with Rep. Bradshaw--"

“Screw that guy!” Henry said a little loudly. The people next to them turned in their direction with disapproving looks. “This is  _ love. _ Listen to me Adam, there’s never going to be a right moment to say it. A meteor could crash into the earth right now, kill us all, and you would live never knowing how he felt. So go!” 

“Seriously, how many glasses have you had tonight? You should probably slow down.”

“We’re not talking about me. We're talking about you and Gansey and how in love you are. You need to tell him. Go, carpe diem.” 

_ Seize the day. _

“You’re going to be alright on your own?”

“Trust me, as long as they keep the pinot noir flowing, I’ll be just fine. Now don’t let me see your face until you know how he feels.”

Adam gave Henry a soft smile back in return. “You know if only you followed your own advice, Henry…” 

Adam slipped into the crowd. He didn’t know what he would say or what he would do when he saw Gansey, but he knew that waiting was agony, and he had suffered enough today. He needed to know. Adam scanned the cluster of people, squeezing through the thick mass until he found Gansey, Rep Bradshaw, his family, and a couple that Adam didn’t know conversing near a decorative ice sculpture of a swan. Rep. Bradshaw paused slightly at the sudden appearance of Adam, and it made everyone turn towards Adam in curiosity. He didn’t care because he was staring at Gansey, and Gansey was staring back at him in a way that made Adam’s pulse pick up speed. Standing before Gansey, the answer became clear what he must do next. 

Gansey took charge of the conversation, introducing Adam to everyone. “Ted, this is Adam Parrish. We attend Yale together. He’s staying with my family for holidays.”

Representative Bradshaw threw on his Sunday best smile and stretched out his hand to Adam. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Parrish.” 

Adam shook hands with the representative before shaking hands with everyone else in the group. Adam glanced at the floor where couples twirled by and then back to Gansey, who furrowed his brows at Adam.

“Is something the matter, Adam?” he asked.

“No, everything is fine.” Adam wetted his lips nervously. “I wanted to know if I could have a dance with you.” Adam held out a clammy palm, doing his best to ignore the reactions of the group. Gansey’s lips parted open slightly at the request. The air grew thick and muddy as Adam watched Gansey’s conflicted expression. 

Until finally…

The other boy turned to Representative Bradshaw.

“It’s been lovely talking to you and your family, but I think I’m going to go dance for a while if that is alright with you.”

Ted Bradshaw with his bulging eyes, nodded wordlessly before he composed himself quickly. “That’s fine.” He recovered his smile. “Enjoy yourself.” His eyes shifted between Adam and Gansey.

Gansey turned his attention back to Adam and put his palm in his, and a thousand butterflies in Adam’s stomach erupted. They crossed onto the dance floor to find an empty patch of space, pausing a little towards the center, both of them awkward as couples whirled around them. 

“Should I? Or should you?” Gansey had asked.

“I’ve only learned how to do this one way,” Adam replied.

Gansey’s face grew warm with a rose-colored flush.

“That’s true.”

Gansey moved in closer, his hand slipping over Adam’s shoulder and down his arm. His other hand joined palms with Adam. A couple turned by them and shot the two strange glimpses but didn’t say anything. 

They were off to a rough and fumbling start. Adam had started on the right leg, and their knees bumped. Just as they had started, they came to a stumbling stop. 

“You’re really terrible at this. Aren’t you?” Gansey laughed.

“I warned you.”

They moved slowly together in awkward and clumsy movements as other couples danced graceful circles all around them. Gansey’s eyes flickered away from the dance floor, and Adam followed his gaze to Bradshaw, who was shooting Gansey curious looks with his wife. 

“I think it’s safe to say that you probably won’t be working with him this summer.”

“Probably not. I think I can live with that though.” Gansey looked down at Adam’s chest, his brows furrowed before he spoke again. “Could we talk somewhere more private?” He asked in a quiet voice, and Adam nodded numbly. This was the conversation that he had been waiting for. They exited the ballroom where Gansey led him outside. A blast of chilly DC air hit them as they traveled down the first couple of steps. Adam pulled his arms around his chest. Gansey, who had been watching Adam, peeled off his own tuxedo jacket and draped it over Adam’s shoulders. 

“You’re not cold?”

“Not really, but I know how cold you get.” He pulled Adam’s hands out of his pits and slowly rubbed warmth into them. “I have a proposal.”

“Okay…” Adam bit down on his bottom lip.

“It’s a night for truths. You can say and ask anything you want, but you also have to answer back truthfully.”

“Okay then. It’s a night for truths.” Adam took a seat on the stone steps, and Gansey followed him, their thighs pressing together as they sat. For a long time, they watched people trundle by on the sidewalk under the soft glow of street lamps. And though it was a night for truths, neither one of them seemed willing to speak up first. Speaking under these conditions meant allowing the other person to strip away every layer of himself until he was completely exposed. It meant that they both had to be vulnerable. Adam swallowed, his heartbeat picking up a quick and unsteady pace. 

“There is so much I want to know, Adam,” Gansey said quietly. “I still don’t understand why you were so upset that I stood up to your father at Cullen’s. Or why you're so upset about getting multiple Christmas gifts this year?”

“I’m not upset about the gifts.”

“You were when it was brought up.” 

To that, Adam said nothing, running his hands over his face. He had been set up. Asking those questions meant delving into other things that he wasn't quite ready to face.

“Could we get one pass?” he asked.

“No. You agreed to a night of truths “

He regretted this already. Adam inhaled deeply as if he was diving underwater. “I only got you one gift, and I worked for weeks to afford it. That satchel, you were ready to buy it for me on the spot. I can’t… do things like that for you, and I can't just let you buy things like that for me on a whim. It feels too much like I owe you or something. I don't want to feel that way about you. I don't  _ ever _ want to feel that way about you.”

“Your father made you feel that way, didn't he? Like you owed him something?” Gansey asked quietly.

Adam’s shoulders sagged, squinting as he recalled that day they ran into Robert Parrish. “It’s more than that. God, having Henry and you there to witness that was a nightmare. That day at Cullen’s, I just felt myself leaving my body when I saw him. I was thirteen, and it felt like he owned me again.” A deep sigh blew out of him as his palm slid over his eyes and his face. Adam waited for Gansey to say something, but he said nothing. He was listening, instead, waiting for more truth that would inevitably come. 

“I promised myself never again. No one would ever make me feel that way. And when you buy me all of these expensive things that I can't afford, I can't  _ just _ enjoy it because there's this voice in the back of my brain telling me that I don't deserve it, and I shouldn't get used to things always being this way.”

“Christ Adam, I don’t want to own you, and I don't want you to feel like you owe me for every nice gesture I want to do for you. I do those things because you deserve the world, and maybe sometimes I do get carried away. I want you to be your own person more than anything, Adam. I want that more than I want to find Glendower sometimes.”

Something in Adam’s chest broke at those final words. Maybe it was the thing that he had been waiting for Gansey to say to him more than anything else. It was like opening up a wound so that it could properly heal. “That’s…” He swallowed the hard knot in the back of his throat and shut his eyes tight for a moment. “Thank you.” Adam shuddered, his voice thick with emotion. Gansey reached up and thumbed the damp corners of his eyes. They sat in silence until Adam’s eyes were no longer damp, and he found his voice. 

“I have a question,” Adam said quietly.

“Shoot.”

“I guess, I want to know why sharing with me feels difficult for you. You know every dark and twisted thing about my past, and I know very little about you. It feels like you're uncomfortable with me learning that part of you.”

Gansey inhaled sharply before releasing a slow, shaky breath. “Because a part of me is uncomfortable. Because I compulsively try to fix other people when I don't know how to fix myself. Because I don't feel whole until I’m chasing after Glendower. In a strange way, we’re more alike than we think Adam. I’ve spent most of my childhood alone, traveling from place to place, and I never had to rely on anyone else. And suddenly, you’re here...it’s hard to change. To let someone else into your world, and you’re afraid that every dark thing about you will drive them away.”

Gansey’s words were like looking into a funhouse mirror. The image was distorted, but the essence still remained. It was strange how two boys from two different worlds, one of diamonds and marble and the other of dust and ashes, grew up to be the loneliest pair of creatures roaming the earth. And what were the odds that these very lonely creatures would find comfort in each other?

When Adam didn't say anything, Gansey continued. “I have everything you could ever want in life. Wealth and beauty. I was born into it. I didn't have to lift a single finger to earn any of this. And the funny thing is, I didn't ask for it. I don't even want it.”

“What do you want?”

“A lot of things. I want the whole wide world and I want to find Glendower and I want to be in Henrietta this summer and I just want to be with you for as long as will have me because, Christ, you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. I look at you sometimes and I think, where have you been the first eighteen years of my life because I can't even fathom how I lived in a world where you weren't already there next to me.” 

Adam held his breath, and something slithered into his chest, coiled tightly around his heart until he couldn't breathe. 

“What I’m trying to say is that I love you.”

Adam closed his eyes and swallowed. Nothing was different. He was still Adam, and Gansey was still Gansey. They were still sitting on the stairs of the National Portrait Gallery in the cold. Nothing had changed, and yet Adam knew that things would never be the same. Adam had rarely given thought to how hearing those words would make him feel, and when he did, he imagined his chest being so full that it burst open and his ears would ring and the world would burst into song and paint itself in a love-tinted shade.

But his heartfelt quiet, and the world looked as real as it had ever been. 

“For how long?”

“How long have I been in love with you?” Gansey repeated slowly, trying to anticipate Adam’s train of thought. Adam nodded. “I think I have for a long time now. I remember the first time I took you to Kramer’s, and I found you reading a book about what love is. I remember thinking how absurd it was that you were learning it from a book when loving someone is like the most natural thing the world. I don't think I fell in love with you then, but it was the moment that made me want to.”

Adam didn't know if it was possible for Gansey to steal his breath away any more than he already did. Adam opened his eyes and inhaled. 

“I didn't think that you felt that way. Why didn't you say anything at Malory’s party?”

“I panicked. And you were drunk. I didn't think you were until you said it. When you’re  drunk, you're in love with everyone suddenly.” 

“In vino veritas,” Adam replied.

“I didn't want to get my hopes up. When I tried to explain myself, you said it was stupid.”

“Only because you said it was a mistake! Why didn't you say something?”

“I did,” Gansey said. “Remember when we landed in DC, and I tried to talk to you. My mom walked in on us.”

“We’re hopeless together.” Adam tilted his head back and laughed. Gansey’s laugh melded with his, creating sweet music in the chilly night air. 

“I love you.”

Adam stopped breathing. He wondered if it would be like this every time.

“I love you too.” 

“Can I kiss you?” Gansey asked him.

“Yes, please.” Adam breathed.

He watched Gansey’s hands reach up and cup his face gently on either side, bringing their mouths closer and closer until finally their lips met like two old friends greeting each other after a long-awaited reunion. A shiver, that had nothing to do with the cold, ran down his spine and through his veins. He pressed closer to Gansey, letting his hands rest against on the other boy’s chest. He could feel the strong, steady beating of his heart just beneath his fingertips. Adam made a soft noise of approval in the back of his throat, tilting his chin up as Gansey trailed warm opened-mouthed kisses down his neck. His eyes fluttered closed, and all of his thoughts were full and heavy with Gansey. 

What is love? Adam had read many books and scientific journals trying to find the answer. He had examined the stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, Cupid and Psyche, Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, and Pyramus and Thisbe. To Adam, who had never known love, these tales were cold and clinical things. He was like Juliet as she waited anxiously for civil night, gentle night, black-brow’d night when love would come to her. And just as Juliet’s Romeo came to her, an answer arrived to Adam and stole him away in the night.

The answer was in the way Gansey made his heart quiet. It was in the way that Gansey made the voices in the back of his mind go mute with a gentle press of his lips. It was in the moments where words were trite and frivolous, and silence was welcomed. 

Gansey left one final, gentle kiss on his ear that had lost all hearing, before pulling away. Long after, Adam sat with his eyes closed, savoring the memory. Gansey’s thumb ran over Adam’s mouth, tracing the outline before tenderly pulling on his bottom lip. 

“I don't want to go back inside.”

“Then don't.” Adam murmured against his thumb. He opened his eyes and smiled. “We could stay out here. We could fly to the moon and back. We could run away in the dead of night looking for magic and old Welsh Kings.”

“Let’s do that.”

“Do what?” Adam blinked. 

Gansey untangled himself from Adam. his eyes keen and bright. “Let’s grab Henry and just get out of here.” He stood and held out his hand for Adam to take.

“I was kidding.”

“And I wasn't.”

“Your parents are going to murder you for leaving early.” 

This plan was wild and it was delirious and it reminded Adam of that song Gansey played in Monmouth when he taught him how to dance. 

Adam took his hand.

_ Take me out tonight _

_ Oh take me anywhere, I don't care _

_ I don't care, I don't care _

_ Driving in your car _

_ I never never want to go home _

_ Because I haven't got one, oh, I haven't got one _

Minutes later, Henry was at the top of the stairs grinning like a madman with two heavy coat in his hands. His own coat was buttoned one button off, rumpled, and lopsided.

“I heard we were running away to Henrietta.” He shouted, half-running and half-stumbling down the stairs and tossing coats at the two. 

“That’s the plan,” Gansey confirmed.

Henry wrapped his arms around Adam’s right shoulder, and then around Gansey’s left shoulder, beaming brighter than the moon and growing larger by the second. 

“I love you guys so freaking much. And now my beautiful wondrous friends are in love. Like I love you guys, and you love each other. It’s a circle of love. And I’m in love.  I’m so happy.” Henry gushed, nuzzling his face against Adam’s. “I told him.” 

“Told who?” Adam asked.

“Noah, you silly goose. I told him that I love him.”

What do you mean you told him?” Adam’s brows furrowed. Henry pulled out his phone and showed Adam and Gansey the text message.

_ You awake? U got something to sayf tr o you.  _

_ I want to say that i love yoy. God i love you so much. i have love youn srince theb day u first first ran me overwith your skateboard. I love evert th hing about you. Your smile. And laufg. Ilove how odds and corns and effervescent you are. And we deserve to be together. What dornyou think???? ♡♡♡  _

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Adam’s eyes almost popped out of his head, and when he glanced over at Gansey, he was wearing a similar expression. An expression that read:

_ Yikes! _

There was nothing they could do. The text had been sent. 

“Jesus Christ,” Gansey swore lightly before he pocketed Henry’s phone so he wouldn’t do any more damage. “What did you do?”

“I’m taking my own advice. He has to know. The world could end at any moment.” Henry waved off Gansey’s questioning expression. “It’s an Adam and I thing. You wouldn’t understand. The point is that I told him, and I have no regrets!”

“Let’s hope you feel the same way in the morning.”  

“Guys, could we stop by Shake Shack on the way? I want a milkshake and fries, you know, real people food.”  Henry asked them.

“I’m up for a pit stop to Shake Shack. What about you?” Gansey’s gaze wandered over to Adam.

“Yeah, I could go for milkshakes.” 

“And fries?” Henry asked,

“And fries.” Adam laughed.

“I love you guys so freakin much.”

“We love you too, Henry.”

“We can catch a metro from Gallery Place in eight minutes,” Gansey said. “Excelsior!”

The three of them moved awkwardly down the street towards the metro station like the six-armed, six-legged, three-headed creature that they were. His head on Henry’s shoulder. Gansey’s hand on his back. Henry’s arms around both of them. Adam couldn't help but think,

_ So this is love.  _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End!
> 
> Some of you might wonder, "But what about Henry and Noah?!?! How did Noah react to the text message?!?!" To that, I say, "That will have to wait for another story." Fun fact, this fic was supposed to be Henry's companion fic...but Adam kind of took over. I will be writing a short companion Czeng fic to wrap up Henry and Noah's story. I'm still in the planning stages now. So if you have any suggestions of what you would like to see in the fic, please feel free to share them in the comments below or message me on tumblr. To keep updated on the final story in this series, please subscribe to the "A Study in Love" series, so you can get a notification when I publish it.
> 
> A big thank you to everyone who has supported this fic by leaving a kudos, bookmarking, subscribing, and commenting!!! It means so much to me. You guys are awesome! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think. Comment, leave a kudos, bookmark, send a message via pigeon. If you would like to obsess about Adansey or TRC in general, feel comfortable to talk to me on [tumblr.](http://rarity-kasket.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Until we meet again! xoxo, Kasket!!!!


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